Emma, she was so sweet and she tasted like Vanilla
by shadow-walker12
Summary: One dark and rainy night Henry is out for clean blood. The flu virus is killing the Boston vampires and feeding becomes a risk. In a dark alley he witnesses 3 men going to satiate their own urges their way with a young woman... We never learned to know in the show how Henry met Emma. Here it goes. Rated M for het/crime. You don t like it? Don t read it. Please read and review.
1. Chapter 1

**Emma, she was so sweet and she tasted like Vanilla…**

The night was damp from the cold rain. Henry had pulled the hood of his sweater over his head. He was leaning at the wall under a protruding roof and lurked down the street that was almost bare of pedestrians at this time. After waiting and watching for almost half an hour he decided to walk over to another area before hanging around here any longer would raise any suspect. Not that any of the few people would really pay any attention to a young guy slumbered under a rooftop in a wet night.

Nowadays humans never paid much attention to their surroundings until anything became really suspicious and threatening. Former times were gone long ago when people had kept some natural instincts and awareness while being outside during the darkness hours. Modern people didn´t hunt anymore, they bought their meals in shops or restaurants nor were they used to be hunted themselves, being the prey on anybody´s menu, either human, vampire or predator.

Following any unaware person through the night, hunting them down, pulling the victim into a dark alleyway or backyard was so easy. Less easy was to get rid of the corpse afterwards properly because modern police service and their forensics were developed enough to find out the real cause of death when it was hidden only clumsily. A kill had become a dangerous task for every vampire and so Aidan had taught him how to feed under so much of control that the donor would survive. The Boston Community had built up a well running blood den in the Halloway Hotel where feeding was possible with all too willing donors.

Blood -letting was paid with…sex.

Descending from a time when vampires were thought to be monsters from the legends he had never imagined it that people, humans, could become eager for the special kind of attention by a vampire.

Henry was deep in his thoughts when he reached a barely lit street a few blocks away. The rain had started again and the wind added to the feeling of cold soddenness. With one hand he shoved the curls under his hood again and dove for the next door frame.

I should have stayed at home tonight… he thought. But the hunger had driven him out of the comfortable warmth of his rooms. He looked down the dark street and his eyes, and the more his ears, got caught by the voices of some people on the other side of the street.

Henry watched closer, hiding himself in the nearby entry to a shabby backyard. His vampire eyes and ears had no trouble with catching up the movements and the voices of three men and a woman. One of the men grabbed her by the arm and tried to pull her into a direction southwards. The woman tried to free her arm and she shouted at him, tried to beat her small bag into his face in the obvious attempt to get free from him.

"Lemme go! Let go you friggin asshole!" she shouted and used her whole rather slender figure as a counter weight to get away from the man. One of the other men grabbed her from behind her shoulders, roughly turning her around and smashing her against the moist brick wall of the building.

Henry heard her cry out from pain when her arm was smashed against the hard surface and accidentally fixed between the stones and her own body.

What had started as a harsh discussion between a woman who could be thought to be a whore and three men, obviously her to-be clients, turned out for Henry as a woman in distress, yes, seriously being in trouble. Her demeanor showed her to be the victim of an upcoming crime of rape instead of being mixing up with men who were used to get what they want, even when they had to pay for it.

Henry could have turned away, not mixing up with mortal affairs or he could have waited until these men would have finished their crime to turn his hungry attention to a helpless and maybe unconscious victim.

But instead he pushed himself away from his hiding place and walked down the street with more than human speed. It took him only seconds to reach the group. The woman was on the ground and one of these guys was half kneeling on her body, pressing her down and his fist and flat hand went for her face, beating it while she started to scream from the pain. The other man was crouching down, his hands pulling her legs apart to position himself onto her.

"Let me go! Bastards! Get away FROM ME!" she screamed but the third man laughed when the one on her chest bent deeper, growling;

"Shut her up! Shut this little slut up and we´ll have some fun with her! I never could resist such a slicky channel of hers!" he laughed roughly and pressed his hand onto the bleeding lips of the young woman.

Her desperate screams were choked under his dirty fingers and he enjoyed her buckling and fear driven twitching.

He never learned to know what got him when he was pulled away from the woman, claws ripping his throat open and he screamed for a mere second before his voice strings were pulled off and blood gushed out of the gaping hole that once had been his throat. He whirled against the same wall as the woman had been before, with the difference that there was a cracking sound when his skull crunched when he hit the cold bricks. His limbs spreading on the pathway like a puppet with the cords cut.

A mere second later the second man watched his own back when hands grabbed his head, turning his head around with inhuman force, snapping his neck.

The third man tried to run but when he jumped away from his victim he was grabbed with iron fingers and a fingernail cut his throat open from the left to the right like a razor sharp blade.

He gurgled and sank to his knees, his fingers blindly fumbling for his throat where blood shot out like from a fountain.

"It´s too bad about spilling blood nowadays but I would rather starve than feed from you!" Henry hissed into his ears before he pushed his trembling body forward where it ended flat, face down, onto the glistening sidewalk tiles. His blood slowly building up a pool that mixed with the rain water.

The young woman was too shocked to scream for help, now that matters took place right in front of her, any guy raging like the devil in human shape. She was lying flat on her back, staring at him thru the big foggy blur that was wavering in front of her burning eyes. The rain streamed onto her face now but she didn´t feel it, her breath a hard staccato and her heart beating wildly.

Henry stood over her, at her feet, looking down onto that young woman. His eyes were bled black, his fangs itching to fall again when her strong smell of blood made the hunger rising again in his starving body.

It would be so easy now to drink his fill.

She was still down onto the ground, helpless, roughed up and fear stricken. Blood was smeared over her fine facial features. She had what he could see, high cheekbones, a slim face with a delicate nose and dark brown eyes. Her hair was dark brown and long, hanging in tendrils around her face and over her shoulders. She wore Blue jeans and her jacket was brutally torn open and shoved to the sides in the fight, her shirt was a mess when the guy had tried to rip it away to get access to her breasts.

With trembling fingers she tried to hide her chest with the remains of the shirt and gasping with fear and effort she wildly struggled to shove herself backwards, away from the man who stood at her feet and of whom she didn´t know if to think of him as a saving angel or another male monster, ready to take her now after he had fought off her opponents.

This man with the hooded sweater, the dark jeans jacket and the curly hair looked as much as a new attacker with his strangely darkened eyes and his blood tainted fingers. Obviously he had ripped off a man´s throat like a wild animal with seemingly no more effort than to crunch an egg shell.

When he bent down a bit, reached a hand at her she shrieked back and her feet stomped the wet ground in an attempt to move her out of his range in sheer panic.

"NO! NO! Le´mme be! Oh please…let me live! I…I won´t tell anyone!..." she pressed out, her voice tumbling over in her fear.

Henry checked the surroundings fast.

The attackers of the young woman had chosen their ground all too well. The street was devastated at this time and they could have gone ahead to put their plans into action if not for Henry hanging out here by coincidence, stepping right into their path and to become a fierce enemy to them.

"Calm down…ssshh…it´s all okay…all is gonna be okay…"

"GO! AWAY! FROM me…!" she growled at him, her voice all panic. He could smell the stench of her fear on her and the smell let the hunger rise within him with animalistic force, shaking the bars of his inner cage. Whispering, growling at him to go and to take what was his.

His fangs itched to fall and he let go. His eyes turned bled black and he bent down, caught her by the shoulders and pulled her up into his arms.

With clenched fists she started to pound his chest in an attempt of desperate self defense.

Henry took back his head, with a swift movement he took hold of her wrists and warded her attack off. With the left hand he fixed her wrists onto his chest and slung the right arm around her shoulders and her back, pulling her into a tight embrace. She woke from her helpless stupor and started to scream, right into his face and nearly bursting his sensitive vampire hearing. Henry let go of her wrists, pressing her at his chest so she couldn´t move her arms and hands when his left arm clung around her upper back and with the right hand he had to made her stop screaming before anybody would get attention.

He pressed his hand onto her mouth area.

"Stop! Stop screaming! I won´t harm you!" he growled in a dark voice. Not even the voice that makes you feeling comfortable with and he knew it. But she had to stop screaming!

She gurgled under his hand and he reminded, he forced himself, to be careful for heaven´s sake! He could easily break her neck or choke her to death with using too much of his sheer vampire strength. Humans were so breakable.

She winced with pain and twitched and buckled, her heart rate at a level he knew to be unhealthy over a longer time.

Her smell was intoxicating and he saw her jugular vein pumping with her pulse. Her blood was singing to him, the all so sweet melody of her blood that was pumped through her body fast and hard. Henry had no doubts that under normal circumstances she would react positively to the temptation a vampire was. When he had been newly turned he had found out that humans felt strangely attracted to the sexual temptation that emanated from vampires despite the probably deadly threat they might be.

Henry felt the hunger piercing his veins and still his intestines, his own heartbeat speeding up in anticipation of a feeding after such a long time. Sometimes he felt it amazing to give in the blind hunger, to let go and smell and taste the fear in a victim, enjoying it when they whined and struggled for their life and then to feed on them until the heart stopped. But mostly he preferred interactive partners, enjoying the taste of arousal in the blood when he had them in his bed or down on the pedestal like beds in the special cellar of the Halloway Hotel.

But this poor woman only smelled of fear and anger, her desperate attempts to get free and away from him on the level of panic.

He had to calm her down at all cost, he thought.

He wasn´t about to hurt her furthermore.

Whoever she was, she was young and beautiful and her blood tainted face rouse his pity now when he looked into her eyes which were widened by her fear. Her lips moved under his hand and he could feel that she was trying to open her mouth in the hope that she could set a fast bite that would force him to let go.

She was a fighter…

But way too weakened now to win a battle against a man/vampire/creature in her eyes who was so much stronger than any human being despite the fact that he was starving since weeks now.

"Stop! Stop that for heaven´s sake!"

Not even simple to sound convincing to a woman who felt herself fighting for her very life now. But what for? When he won´t get her down the situation would escalate.

Henry tried to reposition his grip around her back. He twitched when he felt her numb teeth digging in a slim strip of his palm but he had himself prepared for worse. So he only grinned and didn´t let go, not giving her the chance to bite her way out of his arms. He tensed his hand, his wrist pressing against her chin and pushing her head backwards a bit, covering her mouth to choke her screams.

"Shut up! Shut up!"

She winced with pain when his arm tightened around her ribs, her arm pressing into his chest. Her screams turned into a cry of pain and her face tensed with the pain. Henry looked into her eyes and there was nothing else now but pain. Anything was definitely wrong with her and it made him stop. Maybe the guys had beaten her violently before and she had injuries in the torso. Tears appeared in the corners of her eyes and angrily she shook her head to get her sight cleared but with no success.

"When you stop screaming or crying I´ll put off my hand from your mouth! I don´t want you to have other people get lured over here! You might attract other unwelcomed guys! This is a rather dangerous area for a woman alone at night time…!" he grunted.

It took a moment before she finally nodded, thinking over her chances to go on like this with any success. Maybe better when she gave in and looked for another chance of escape from this man who so easily had killed three men.

Both had been so involved in this fight that the woman didn´t see that one of the men seemed to go through a strange change, looking different from a dead human now. Henry saw it out of the corner of his eye and he turned around a bit so that the woman in his arms could not see what was going on behind her back.

"Damn!" he cursed under his breath.

One of the rapers had undergone a change after his throat was ripped out. The body lying onto the rain wet sidewalk tiles had developed a growth of hair that spread over his entire body and even his face, covering him in short dark fur and after a few seconds he completely turned into the shape and body of a dead wolf.

Werewolf.

Purebred.

Only purebreds turned into werewolf when they were killed. Josh would have kept his human shape if he would have been killed in human shape…

He should have smelled it, should have smelled the wolf on them.

But the situation and his hunger had made him kinda inattentive, additionally to the urge to come to the woman´s help. Henry had always kept some certain degree of control, had kept some respect for women aside his being a vampire. The time in which he had grown up and the education he had gotten by his father had always made him keep some restraint and taught him to be protective about them.

Slowly he lifted his palm from her mouth and inwardly breathed with relief when she kept silent. Tears were dripping down her cheeks and the salty water was mixing with the blood on her chin. Henry would have licked it off, felt the urge to go for her lips but he kept himself off. He grabbed her by the shoulders that were still trembling from the sobs and from her fear and anger at the same time. He gave her some space and the very moment she was able to make use of the minimal distance she grabbed for her arm and wrapped her hand around her forearm. Her face tensed again and Henry heard her hissing. Carefully he shoved her back a bit and his right hand was going for her fingers.

"Let me see!" he demanded with a voice as calm as possible.

"It´s…it´s…nothing! Let me be!" she brought out but her voice told him other than her harsh tone. She was tired, exhausted, shaken to the core of her heart and weakened. Finally she was seeking some comfort, regardless whoever was willing to do so.

"It´s not nothing at all. Let me see…I won´t hurt you…" he began.

"I was hurt by…" she protested.

"Not by me! I came to your help!" Henry interrupted her before she could accuse him for her situation. Her eyes looked up into his face that had won back some of his human composure now. She relaxed a bit and hesitatingly her fingers removed from her badly hurting arm.

Henry carefully moved his fingers over her forearm, feeling for the bones. She hissed unintentionally when it hurt. He looked into her eyes. The warm brown had become watery and she tried to press her lips onto each other to prevent herself from sniffing.

"This arm of yours is hurt…we should take care of it…looks like the bone is partially fractured…better to get you to a doctor…" Henry said and she looked at him, her brows knitting in an all over skeptical view. He couldn´t blame her for it after all what had happened now.

She made a step back, still in his slight embrace.

"What are ya talking about a doc? Why care about me when you almost got me killed too!? You killed these three men! You KILLED them! KILLED!" she spat at him.

"Otherwise they would have killed YOU!" he simply stated as if it meant nothing else, randomly talking about the loss of an old mop.

She stared at him as if he had lost his mind completely. Then she went on;

"What are you that you…you dared to? Guess you are no cop! Or any friggin James Bond, running around with a license for killing and killing people as you like or dare to decide by your own gusto?"

"You don´t even have the slightest clue what you´re talking about! These three…men had been killers. Didn´t you ever hear of the women who got killed after being raped. The rumors that two or three men grouped up in crime? There was serial rape and kill over the last months after a pause of almost five years. So maybe you didn´t ever hear from it! Guess how young you are." His voice was stern and his hand supported her arm.

She blinked and he couldn´t hinder her to watch over to the corpse that had…shape shifted. Her eyes became wide and she trembled and her voice was almost tumbling over when she directed over;

"What…what is it? WHAT THE HELL IS it?"

Henry decided it was time to protect her and use some of his compelling skills. He looked into her eyes, fixing them and his hand went for her chin, supporting it from beneath when he answered;

"It´s nothing but a very large dog! One of the guys had a dog at hand and he called it by when I fought him off! I had to kill it before the dog would have gone for your throat! Beside…" he had her full attention now, even if unwillingly and took advantage of it now, asking her for her name;"Beside what´s your name. At least I have a right to know now that I saved you from a bunch of serial rapers!"

"Smith. Emma Smith…" she dropped it in. Her voice trailing away.

"Okay…Emma…" he put his hand on her temple and stroked softly over it, felt how she trembled. She moved her hand to her eyes, wiped over them with the back of her hand to get the tears away.

"It´s all good…all will become okay again." Henry added when she looked into his now cerulean eyes.

"I´ve never been sick…" she mumbled; "Not even…not even a damn flu! And now this…this…", her voice became uncertain; " this asshole…broke my arm!"

Henry´s ears stood on alert suddenly when she mentioned…

"Not even a damn FLU!"

This woman…she might… What a luck probably. Stumbling over clean blood by pure coincidence in a night in a devastated alley…

"That´s rather impressive. So you´re a healthy woman, for sure you got vaccinated against the flu, ain´t you?" he put in as casual as he was able now. If she was clean…she would be a gift to him. A gift he had to keep under all circumstances!

"No…no vaccination ever…never felt the urge for it for I never got sick from it…" her voice was calm and she seemed to talk simply to calm down herself by some random stuff. Distracting her from the threat, the fear and the pain she was in.

Henry felt dizzy a moment.

Emma was clean! Clean! He could get to her blood for a while without the deadly threat of dying from the flu!

It took him a moment to regain his composure before he bent down onto Emma, hiding his excitement with effort. Emma was afraid enough and it was a pretty wrong moment now to confront her with vampire feeding habits. The rain was still falling and both of them got soaked thru meanwhile. So Henry made a decision.

"Come on, Emma, I´ll get you to a doctor. I have a friend who works in a hospital and this should get an X-Ray. I´m so sorry I hadn´t been in here earlier to prevent it…" he bent to her ear and took in her smell. The stench of fear and adrenaline was wearing off a bit now that she was calming down. Emma nodded and he pulled off his jeans jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders, laying an arm around her so that she could cuddle against his chest when he leaded her out of the dark street.

At the next large and brightly lit corner he waved by a cap. The car stopped and Henry helped Emma inside.

"Suffolk County Hospital please." He addressed the driver. "It´s not all too far, Emma…there you´ll get examined and the doctor can give you any analgetic, for sure that pretty hurts…" he stroked her temple and she nodded. He hadn´t her under any spell in the moment, didn´t compel her by now. Obviously she became some more comfortable with the thought of getting treated by a doctor. Henry sighed low under his breath.

It took them some ten minutes to arrive at the Suffolk County and Henry lead her in, upstairs to where he knew to be the ambulance rooms. The hallway was occupied by a few people waiting to get medical treatment. He placed Emma on a seat and went to the desk with the nurse.

"I need a doctor for my friend…she fell and I´m afraid she broke her arm…"

"Okay, but you´ll have to wait. That´s no case of emergency and there are all these people ahead of you, Mr.!"

"Quite okay. We´ll wait."

Henry looked back to Emma who had sunken into the seat, holding her arm, her face tensed again.

"Does she have an insurance card of any kind?" the nurse asked.

"Wait a moment…" Henry went over to Emma, asking her;"Do you have any insurance card? The nurse wants it."

Emma shook her head no.

"Oh, your employer doesn´t care?"

"I´m still in education…my parents are living in New York! I can only send the bill over and…"

"Uh…okay…"

"I´m afraid they won´t do anything without it, won´t they?" Emma looked uncertain and sad. "So we better leave before they would…"

"There´s no one to chase you out. This is a hospital, no hotel!" Henry stated determined. He turned over to the reception desk again and the nurse looked at him somewhat doubtful.

"No card?...Any money ?" she tried to sound kind. Homeless often were troublemakers and the hospital had no legal contract with the social system for treatment of non-payers.

"I´ll take care of it. Can you try to reach Josh Levinson? He´s a nurse in here! I want to talk to him please. It would be very kind of you if you would beg him to come down here for a moment." Henry´s voice had become deeper, his eyes slightly darkening.

The nurse nodded and took her phone, checking the dial list and she called the ward Josh was working on. Henry heard the phone ring. It took a while until a familiar voice answered.

"Mr. Levinson…here´s a friend of yours. He begs you to come down to the ambulance rooms…"

"Aidan?" Josh asked.

"I dunno. " The nurse turned to Henry; "What´s your name?"

"Henry. Henry Durham."

"`kay. He says his name is Durham, Henry…"

He heard a moan from the other side of the line. "Okay…okay…tell him, I´m on my way down to you!" Josh sighed. The line shut down.

A few minute later Josh appeared in the room. He went straightly to Henry, his face stern when he turned him around, whispering;

"Okay, Henry! You ran out of blood? Listen, I can´t provide you with clean stuff. They would ward…kick me off job! Guess, you know what that means, Henry!?" He sounded annoyed whatever Henry wanted from him. Quite certain it was for blood. It was always for blood when it came to vampires!

Henry pulled him a few steps away; "I don´t ask you for clean donors, Josh!"

"What is it now?"

"It´s for…Emma. She broke her arm…she´s my friend. No vampire! I need medical treatment for her and she is only paid for this by her parents who are living in New York!"

"So you picked a girlfriend for you, huh?!" Josh looked over to Emma who was sitting in the chair like a heap of misery.

"Girlfriend…hm, not directly. I picked her out of a rather…dangerous situation. Three guys were about to rape her. Plain and simple and she broke her arm in it. She´s just some random girl I took care of!"

"Why didn´t you simply call the police?" Josh hissed low under his breath. "The cops are in for such stuff!"

"Cause it was me who…handled these guys. My way!"

"YOUR way! It means… you sucked them dry? Kinda off?"

"No! She was in danger, Josh. I left them where they were lying! They were killers and rapers all in one!"

Josh stared at him, biting his lower lip, "Means…you…you…" he moved his hand across of his throat in a determined and quite clear gesture; "you killed them! HENRY! Do you know what the heck this is gonna mean?!" He looked at Henry as if the vampire had lost his mind.

Henry bared his teeth in annoyance, good luck his fangs were retracted.

"They killed many. It had been werewolves, Josh! On the hunt for woman like for natural prey!" Henry defended his actions.

Josh grabbed him by the arm, pulling him more aside. Out of the hearing range of the other people.

"Aidan told me you had and are having sex with partners while drinking! Don´t tell me there isn´t rape in it!" he spat at Henry.

The answer was a dark growl under closed lips, deep from within the throat of the vampire.

"I never rape! And my eating habits are not to be discussed here and now, Josh!" Henry stared at him with eyes threatening to turn black again.

"What is it then you are calling me down here for? He?" Josh pushed his hands on his hips. He was not afraid of any of Henry´s vampire attitudes.

"Guess it had been a mistake to ask for you, Josh!" Henry shrugged his shoulders and started to turn away. Josh watched him for a moment before he roughly grabbed for Henry´s shoulder, turning him around to face him again. To his utter surprise he managed it without Henry so much as fighting him off in return.

"He! Ya gonna tell me what you came for!" Josh demanded.

Henry let out a deep breath and looked at Josh, the man who was best friends with Aidan, his maker.

"You saved my life and I know I owe you…I asked for you…hoping ya gonna do me a favor. But this might have been too much to ask for…"

"What favor? Tell me, Henry!"

Silence for a moment.

"I…I hired rooms for me and I may have work next month. I´m running short on money currently and so I simply thought…if you could make up for me meanwhile…her cost of medical treatment…"

"So you wish me to pay for this girl, Henry!? That´s…that´s kinda much, in fact!"

"I know I was wrong, Josh. Beg your pardon. We better gonna leave now…" Henry mumbled. He tried to free his shoulder from Josh´s grip but Josh didn´t let go now. Angrily he turned his face and looked into Josh´s face that was all but…certain now.

Josh seemed to be at war with his inner self as had happened so often in the past, as Aidan had told him. Not enough Josh had been fighting with his inner wolf but with his fate as well. There was an expression of turmoil in his face and Henry tried to pull free again with determined but soft force. HE could have hurt the man/wolf so easily now but he didn´t want to. Josh had saved his life when giving him shelter the day Aidan had placed him on their threshold, dripping from blood, bare of any skin and going to die soon if not for blood for a healing. And he had saved him the second time when it came to help him to get free from Mother´s deadly lair.

And now he had dared to ask for a favor by himself.

Josh was right. It was much what he had asked for but Aidan´s friend was the only man he could trust to since the flu had taken Boston vampires in its deadly embrace. In the fight for clean blood even vampires were going to lengths without any restriction for their own kind. Each source of clean blood was defended bitterly, even killing each other when felt necessary. And werewolves were taking advantage of the fact that the vampires were to face their extinction. What once had been a rare thing; fighting and hunting down vampires in the nights before and on full moon, had changed to a kind of entertainment…of sports. In this way it had become equal to the great hunt the first European invaders started on the buffaloes and doves on the American continent in the early 19th century. Ages old natural quarrels threatened to escalate in war now that two superior to human species went into open war.

And these guys he had killed this night had been violating old rules when spreading their deadly attention over to human women. Never before, at least as he knew, werewolves had hunted down women as their prior target. Occasionally a werewolf killed a human being rather accidentally when meeting each other by coincidence in the nights they were turned werewolves, were wolved-out. This night was the night before full moon and Henry knew that in the few nights around full moon werewolves had a larger strength than humans, even strong enough to fight vampires. But consciously hunting human women intentionally only for raping them and killing them afterwards as fun…

One of them had been a purebred, the others were turned ones, maybe his childes as they hadn´t turned into wolf shape after dying. Henry fully understood that Josh felt anger about the kill of what, to some certain degree, had been part of his own kind. If not now but in the past they had been equals to Josh even when Josh had tried to suppress it.

Henry breathed deeply and tried to calm down a bit, watching Josh as he chewed on his lower lip. Finally the former werewolf seemed to come to terms with himself and he took Henry´s arm, pulling him aside.

"Okay, Henry…I´ll advance you some money…for her!"

"Thank you, Josh! She´ll give it back to you as soon as her parents will send it over to her."

Josh nodded; "Let´s go! I guess your lady is waiting!"

They went to the nurse and Josh bent over the desk.

"I will advance her costs at first." He said to her. The nurse nodded; "Okay, as you like, Mr. Levinson. May you hand this over to her?" she reached him a clipboard with some form sheets on it. "Please fill in the forms and tell her she has to wait…uhm…approximately some two hours…it´s crowded in here as you see."

Josh nodded and together with Henry he went over to Emma.

"We gonna need some data from you…" Josh looked into her face and she lifted her head with a hiss, wincing from pain low under her breath, her hand wrung around her injured arm.

"I…I guess…won´t be able…to write yet…" she whispered.

"I´ll do for you…!" Henry said and took the seat beside her again. He looked deep into her eyes and her tensed face. "Is there strong pain…?" he asked in a hushed voice.

"Damn hurts…" she whispered and swallowed hard.

"Can you do anything for her, Henry? I mean…you´d been gonna do that mind thing of yours pretty well on your…meals…" Josh whispered so low that only Henry could hear it. When Henry was good at convincing his victims into willing into sex against blood feeding then he should be able to reduce her pain at bit at least until the doctor would take care of her, Josh thought.

Henry smiled ever so slightly and put the clipboard aside. He turned over his full attention onto Emma.

"Emma! Emma…look into my eyes!" He fixed her eyes with his view. She stared into his face and he laid his fingers at her temples. "Relax…relax hon, look at me…yes! Ya´re doing a pretty good thing, Emma! I´m with you…relax…yes…easy…easy…ssshhh…it´s all good…" he stroked her temples and felt her shudder a bit under his hands. "Emma, honey! There´s no pain…it´ll slide away…away…yes…you´ll relax. Deeply relax and the pain will be gone now…it´ll all good again soon…don´t be afraid of me! I´m your friend, my love…!" His voice had become seductive, comforting.

Josh watched him warily. For his taste this was now going too far.

"Henry!" Josh warningly whispered. "Isn´t that a bit too far with her? I mean, she´s gonna …and you shall cease her pain, not more…!"

Henry shot him an angry view, growling; "I know what to do. That´s none of your business, Josh, but you would be able to do instead!"

"she´s not your food source. Henry! Keep yourself in!" Josh spat back, a bit pissed off.

Henry was beside his ear, hissing; "She is!"

As fast as he had stood up he was sitting beside Emma again as if this never had happened.

Josh stepped back and shook his head, staring at Henry in disbelief. Aidan´s son had picked up this woman, a couple of seconds ago telling him, that she was simply some random girl he had saved from falling victim to a crime. And now…? Josh watched as Henry stroked and padded Emma´s temples, his long and slim fingers fixing her head between his caressing hands and his voice had lowered down to a whisper, his eyes gone black.

Emma looked at him, her shoulders slightly twitching under the sobs and Henry´s thumbs wiped over her cheeks, wiping them away.

"Are you still in pain? Is there pain, Emma?" he softly asked her, his look soft now despite his darkened eyes. To a stranger Henry looked like nothing but a caring and concerned friend.

Either he was very good in deception, what Josh didn´t doubt since he was used to vampires, or Henry really felt something for Emma.

Henry saw that her eyes had gotten now this slightly shaded expression that indicated that the compelling worked on her. He laid his right arm around her comfortingly, pulling her a bit closer to him. Her head sank to his right shoulder and she cuddled into Henry.

"Is she any better in the moment, Henry?" Josh asked and watched her warily.

"Yes…she´s relaxing a bit. Looks like her pain subsided a bit at least…" Henry answered in a low voice.

Henry knew that he was deep in Josh´s debt; with his life and a lot more. Josh had given him shelter in a desperate situation, once reluctant, then, when he learned to know him better…a bit more open minded. When he had come into Josh´s home, desperate, skinned, almost unconscious and almost bled to death…a 99% dead vampire, even for an immortal creature, Josh might have denied him access if it had not been for Aidan´s friendship and Aidan being his maker/father. No reason to act hostile now to the man/werewolf who had also saved him from Mother´s lair where he had been hung from a hook like vampire meat in a vampire slaughter house to die slowly and painfully.

Josh looked at him when Henry searched eye contact with him. Henry wasn´t certain anymore if Josh would keep his financial support upright after the last minutes. Normally he wasn´t used to beg for anything and maybe his last remark had thrown away his chances with Josh. He had made it through eighty years out there on Boston streets and he had become way more tough and cunning by it, used to take what he could get. But Josh was somebody he could count on and Aidan´s friend acted out of friendship and good will…

"Why are so angry with me, Josh?" he asked in a hushed voice.

Obviously Henry wanted to make good for something now, Josh thought.

"I´ll tell you, Henry! I´m not going with the way you´re handling her…" Josh directed to Emma who obviously had slipped into a nap in Henry´s arms. Exhaustion must have taken over now and even a vampire might be a better choice or refuge than any of these guys outside who had gone for her like a toy that was to be thrown away when play was over.

"…you can´t make her your walking blood bag, your meal on legs!"

"I would have taken my fill long ago the very moment she confessed to me the cleanliness of her blood, Josh! But I didn´t! And why did I resist despite I´m starving since weeks? The vampires are dying out there from the damn flu. You haven´t seen what I have seen, Josh! It´s not friggin gonna make you ignorant when there´s death around you. Some good friends have even died in my arms and every ever so small sip from a tainted source means your ultimate death! I´m sorry but I doubt that you can imagine what that means, Josh, even when you have seen people dying in hospital out of different reasons… We are to face our ultimate extinction with the flu! Also when humans see us as monsters who deserve nothing else but destruction but for us it´s equal to an extinction of humankind!"

"You don´t wanna discuss with me right now the very right of existence itself, ain´t you, Henry?!" Josh knitted his brows and his fingers clenched. Henry was right. He couldn´t imagine losing Aidan, his friend and comrade in the preternatural. And Henry was Aidan´s son! Hadn´t he the same right like Aidan like everyone, a right to live his life as long as it doesn´t mean killing…?

"I´m sorry when I sounded rude to you, Josh…but I…If ever you will understand me…I´m desperate…!"

"But she is human, Henry! And you have to respect her very will."

"Josh, I´m in control. Always. I won´t harm her, Josh. By no means…but she may become my saving angel and I won´t let go! Not after all…and Emma, she´s so sweet…I could have taken my fill long ago but I care about her and that is more than anyone could ever expect from a vampire in urge, Josh!"

Josh chewed on his lower lip, his hands clenched into each other, than he scratched his stubbly beard. He had very mixed feelings about letting Henry have his way with the young woman but it had been Aidan who had snapped necks when things had run out of control, not Henry. And maybe Henry was right with it. At least Emma seemed to have relaxed a bit and she seemed to feel comfortable with Henry. The fact that she had escaped a deadly threat had made her flee into the first arms that promised protection and a relative safety to her. Being a human she was far not able to shake off such an incident like dust from her dress. She was rather traumatized, additionally or foremost to her physical injury and Henry saving her presented the one force that was able to protect her from more danger.

"Okay, Henry…but please, I beg you…handle her with care and respect. Don´t betray her trust into the man who saved her life! You can understand that I feel pretty mixed up with the imagination to handle a human woman over to a starving vampire! I dunno know by myself why I`m approving this! I would never forgive myself if any harm happens to her. Oh my God…" Josh sighed and grabbed for his forehead; "How far has this brought me over to the other side?! Who am I that I´m giving my okay to this?"

Josh looked desperate and Henry put his free hand onto Josh´s right wrist, a gesture of confidence.

"She´ll be safe with me, Josh. Believe me!"

"First and foremost! Protect her from the others of your kind! If they learn to know she´s clean blood…" Josh could very well imagine what would happen if other vampires would find out; they would descend on her like famished monsters. What they really were by now! And Emma´s blood would stick on his hands!

Sitting apart from the other people waiting in the room and Emma seemingly being under Henry´s influence, call it mind control, they could allow themselves a rather open talk. Emma softly moaned in her light sleep and Henry looked at her, comforting her temple with soft fingers, the other hand protectively lying around her hurt arm.

"It´s okay…try to sleep a while when we are waiting, Emma. It´s okay…I´ll stay with you…" he whispered and she blinked and her eyes fell shut again at his shoulder.

"How far do you have her…I mean…the mind control thing…" Josh whispered to Henry.

"I only did it on her as far as it helps her to relax and makes the pain subsiding as far as it´s possible without medication…Don´t worry, Josh!" Henry smiled slightly.

"I don´t worry! I hope she´ll have no reason to worry for herself, Henry…"

"She won´t have to, Josh!" His voice barely audible to prevent Emma from waking up now that she had slipped back into the sleep of exhaustion in his arms.

Josh nodded and shot a look over to the reception desk where the nurse called in the next patient. Anybody was to sign up the data entry form for Emma, point seven; assumption of costs.

"Okay, Henry…gimme the board…" he directed to the clip board that Henry had set down beside their chairs. Henry reached for it and handed it over to Josh who inserted himself for the costs.

"Okay. That should do…" he mumbled and gave it back to Henry who looked onto it for a moment. After all what had happened he felt astonishment and a hint of bewilderment that Josh had decided to take over for him.

"Thank you so much, Josh…I´m deep in your debt!

" Henry brought out. "I…I´ll pay it back as fast as possible when I´m on the job…"

"You´re welcome, Henry!...I…I only wonder since what I´m doing here…" He never had expected that his friendship with a vampire and a ghost would lead him to do…and worse…accept things he never ever would have accepted before he himself was turned into a werewolf… To some certain degree this had become his personal voyage into…darkness. The contact with the world of preternatural had changed up his mind, his thinking, had kind of compromised his conscience…

The door had been fallen shut behind him the very moment when he had mumbled his "Mi casa e su casa" to a 99% dead vampire on his threshold.

"Guess you made me gonna pay for your food, ain´t ya?!" Josh uttered; "…but that hadn´t been the first time and guess it won´t be the last one as I know you and me. If it won´t be for you being Aidan´s son, I would have kicked your ass into the next pile of stakes, Henry!"

Josh grinned at him.

"Aidan would go mad about it…!" Henry answered and Josh shook his head.

"He would pump my ass with a whole mag of silver bullets and then it won´t matter if I´m wolfy boy or not!" Josh shot back. "Okay, call me when you´re ready. I have to go upstairs again now, my shift isn´t over yet and first of all Mike will kick my ass if I don´t move called part up again very fast. Our ward is stuffed up under the ceiling!"

"Okay, Josh. I´ll call up when we are ready here…"

One and half an hour later the nurse at her desk called up Emma. Henry softly shook her by the shoulders, mumbling a low; "Wake up, Emma…it´s your turn…" She had slept meanwhile, waking up in between and slipping back into her doze again and again.

Emma woke up with a start, disorientated for a few seconds before she became fully aware of her surroundings. Henry smiled at her reassuringly and stroked a tendril of her brown hair back from her face.

"Emma…come on…I´m gonna help you…" He smiled at her and she blinked, adapting to the brightness of the room into which Henry leaded her when the nurse had opened the door.

"Can…can you please stay? With me…?" she begged in a low voice, barely audible but to him.

Henry nodded. He hadn´t compelled her into anything but relaxing and feeling less pain. Her asking him to stay with her came by herself. Obviously she felt a certain safety in his presence.

The doctor, a young man, directed to an examination table.

"What can I do for you, Miss?"

"I…I´m afraid…my right arm is broken…I slipped and stumbled against a brick wall…God, I don´t know how that could happen…" she uttered.

"Sometimes luck simply seems to leave us…" The doctor smiled; "I´ll do an x-ray to see what happened to your arm, Mrs. Smith…In case it´s uncomplicated we´ll fix the fracture and you´ll get a cast for about three or four weeks. None of that heavy plaster casts like in the past…the only disadvantage of the modern casts is that they can´t get autographed so richly and simple!" The doctor smiled at Henry; "You won´t imagine what tralala patients make when we finally have to cut down their autographed casts. As if you´re gonna burn up a Rembrandt!" He laughed a bit and even Emma smiled slightly when also Henry could hear her heartbeat speeding up by her rising nervousness.

"All will turn out okay, Emma…" Henry whispered into her ear.

"Please follow me…!" the doctor said and in the next room, a rather small chamber, Henry helped Emma with stripping down the jacket and the shirt. He urged himself not to stare at her well formed breasts. She was rather slim and wore a black lace bra. Her upper arms were slim but the muscles taunt. She was a beautiful young woman in the common sense. None of these hunger hooks like the fashion models, he thought when his view traced down her shoulders and her back when she followed the doctor into the x-ray chamber.

After a couple of minutes the door opened again and the doctor came out with her, a bundle of x-ray images in his hands. He put the images at the wall screen and watched them thoroughly.

"Hm…you´re a really lucky one, Mrs. Smith! The cubit is partially broken but not totally, so we don´t have to fix that in a narcotic state. I will set you a local anesthetic which makes your arm numb and then I´ll fix the bone and getting you a cast…Are there any allergies known to you, especially for anesthetics?"

"No..none…I know of…" Emma uttered nervously.

Henry turned to the doctor; " Any minds if I accompany her?"

"Uhm, we have to do that under x-ray control."

"Oh of course…" Henry nodded and bent down to Emma; "I´ll wait in the next room. I won´t leave. Okay?"

Emma nodded slightly and sighed.

After some ten minutes the doctor called him in again when he was putting a modern cast around her arm.

"How do you feel, Emma?" Henry asked her while she was lying on the table.

"I…I´m simply…soo tired…" she moaned.

"Any pain, dear?" For sure the anesthetic tilted the pain for now but she would have pain again when the medication was wearing off.

"I can prescribe her something in case Mrs. Smith gets pain when the anesthetic wears off…" The doctor declared.

"Okay…just in case…" Emma mumbled and turned her face to Henry who was standing at her left side. The doctor finished the cast and Henry helped Emma to pull on her shirt again, hanging her jacket around her shoulders when they left the ambulance room.

Henry looked deep into her eyes; "You gonna walk on your own? Feeling steady or shall I get you a wheel chair to the entrance…?" he asked her when he supported her to the waiting area, placing her on a chair again.

"No, guess…I´m okay…" she mumbled; "…kind of…" she added, her voice trailing away. Her tone made Henry look into her face with a hint of concern for what he had to crouch in front of her. His hands softly cupped her face and his voice was his normal one, when he replied;

"But that doesn´t look like that to me…Take a rest, Emma, before we will leave. I´ll call us a cap. I´m sure this night has been too much for you." His fingers stroked her temple and she looked into his face with the cerulean eyes. In her mixed up composure she didn´t remark the obvious changes in his eye color, the back and forth from blue to black to blue.

"Where do…we go to…?" she whispered, her voice slightly trembling.

Henry´s mind worked with high speed.

He had to get her into his rooms, no way! If Emma would leave for her own home he wouldn´t be safe to get her back next time with still clean blood. She might catch the flu and then she would be useless to him, his only safe source since weeks. Josh couldn´t provide him with clean blood from donors from the hospital.

Emma was his only chance to get back into tracks relatively. He had to keep her under his special surveillance under all circumstances! For sure; Emma was a beautiful and nice person and he felt some natural attraction to her but first of all she was…

…his key to survival over the next time.

Either she would follow him home or he would have to put some mental force on her. She was receptive to his compelling skills, this she had proved before, but keeping her under control by compelling all the time would be unsatisfying, even when possible.

So he decided to take advantage of her situation and her mental state.

"I have rooms…I think it´ll be better when you´re coming home with me…You need a bit of assistance…" Henry directed to her right arm in the cast. "And you have gone thru a crime…I won´t have a good conscience to let you go back at home and then staying alone in your rooms. Not after what had happened, Emma…" he stroked over her cheek and temple, his other hand resting onto her hands in her lap.

When she would come with him willingly it would be much easier; for him and for Emma. Better to simply convince her than to force her with vampire skills. The more she would trust him, his good intentions, the better for her mental health…

"Sounds…reasonable…I…I´m so sorry I´m such a troublemaker for you…For sure you were on your way to another appointment….and now I have taken all your time…" she whispered.

"I haven´t been out for another woman, I simply was…let´s say…in the right place at the right time." He smiled at her, his fingers playing with her tendrils.

Emma looked tired, exhausted and shaken to the base.

A bit of comfort won´t be wrong for her by now, he thought.

"Or do you have a friend or relative you could go to in Boston?" Henry did all but not hearing a yes now! When she was a single it was way easier to keep her off!

"No, not now. My parents are living in New York and my friend…I broke up with him a couple of weeks ago. Mom liked him but I could not imagine to go on with him…for a longer period…we…we were to different at least…" She sighed and took a deep breath. "Maybe when I won´t have ended the relationship I won´t have gone out tonight all alone. I…I didn´t know for myself why I was strolling along there, my thoughtlessness leading me into this devastated corner of Boston….Oh my God!" The sudden realization that she could have died tonight, hit her with full force.

Tears started to run down her cheeks and her shoulders were trembling with the sobs. A waiting patient nearby gave her and Henry a questioning look. Henry waved a negation at him.

"It´s all okay. Thanks…" he gave back in a hushed voice and the man turned his attention back to the reception desk.

Emma was sitting in her chair like a heap of misery and suddenly she felt Henry´s arms wrapping around her shoulders carefully, paying attention to her arm. His face was only inches away from her and she could feel his rather cool breath onto her face. His eyes full of true concern.

"You better will come with me, Emma. I don´t wanna have you alone at your home in this constitution…you´ll feel better with someone around you, a person you can talk to if you want or at least sleep in the consciousness that there is someone around you to give you some safety and to protect you…" Henry urged her with soft pressure. It was no compelling, just true concern.

He carefully wiped the tears from her cheek and cupped her chin.

"Is that okay for you, Emma?"

"Ye…yes…I…maybe you´re right…I don´t feel well tonight…alone…" She looked at Henry and even when he was unknown to her his manner was comforting and he was so concerned about her…Any companionship tonight was better than being alone at home with her fear and her panic stricken mind, she thought. After almost getting killed by these guys she was afraid of being alone in any room, even her own.

"What…what about…your friend…?" she uttered, searching urgently for any distraction. Henry´s face was directly hovering in front of her face. A smile appeared around his lips and he pulled off his cell phone from his jeans.

"He was…he said you should call him when ready…" she went on in a low voice. Her hand slipped onto his left forearm, he felt her fingers shaking when she was clinging to him like a drowning man to a straw.

"I do, Emma…it´s Josh, my friend, he works here and he signed up for your treatment…He´s such a kind guy…" Henry dialed Josh´s number and it took a while until Josh answered the call from the ward.

"We are ready to leave, Josh!" he began.

"What´s up with her? Did it turn out all right?" Josh asked.

"Relatively. It´s not that worse as I thought before. Her cubit is partially broken, the doctor fixed it and she has gotten a cast… Three to four weeks the doc said…"

"What are you going to do…with her…?"

"What? What am I not going to do with her, Josh?" Henry answered Josh´s question with a counter question.

"Uh. Listen, ya know what I mean, Henry!"

"She will come with me tonight, I offered her a room to rest. She really needs to come down now! Her nerves are lying blank what you can imagine after almost getting raped and killed…"

"Don´t dare to do her any harm, Henry! I warn you! Or I will make spit roast outta you!"

"Josh! Emma is precious to me! I won´t harm her nor allow anybody to try! She´s safe with me!" Henry shot back, his voice a bit annoyed, hiding behind his human mask.

"So safe as one can be safe with a starving vampire! I hope I didn´t sell my soul to hell with letting her within your orbit! I won´t forgive myself! The less I would forgive you!" Josh hissed into the phone when a nurse came nearby, his hand cupping the speaker.

Henry heard that Josh´s voice suddenly became low, obviously anybody was near him in the hallway.

"Okay, I´ll take care for her. Thanks for your signing up for her, Josh. See you later…" Henry answered.

"See you, Henry!" Josh smiled. "Till later when you´re running out of stuff again and ya´re dropping in for a new bag on legs!" he added after he had hung up.

Henry turned back to Emma, a smile on his face. He bent down to her.

"Do you feel steady…any better now, Emma?"

"A…a bit. I´m so tired…can you call me a cab?"

"For sure. The nurse can call us a cab and we´ll drive home. It´s pretty late and you need to sleep, not this dozing in a chair…At my home there is a bed and you will sleep better in the presence of me around…!"

"Normally…uhm normally I´m not…I mean…I´m not the woman who simply spends a night at an unknown´s man home as a first step…!" Emma mumbled and with her healthy hand she stroked through her long hair in a gesture of embarrassment. Henry smiled at her;

"I know! It´s quite okay, Emma!"

"I only made trouble for you until now!" She sounded guilty.

"No, you won´t! As I told you before, I had been hanging out in the streets because I needed simply some fresh air after a long day. I haven´t been on my way to any other woman, Emma…there´s no other woman around!" He was comforting her shoulders with his fingers and she simply gave in. No compelling needed.

"Okay…I´m glad to get outta here as fast as possible…Any which way to…"

Henry went to the reception desk and came back a moment later.

"The cab is on its way…a few minutes she said!" He took the place beside her, his hand lying on her left wrist.

His fingers felt her pulse wave pumping the hot red blood directly under her delicate skin. The slight vibration of it at the tips of his fingers made the hunger rising within him and unintentionally his fingers slipped around her wrist completely. Henry had to fight the inner beast back behind the bars of its cage, had to reign in the urge to lift her wrist to his lips and bore his fangs into it which threatened to fall. He lifted her wrist softly to his nose, closing his other hand around and he sniffed at it, inhaling her decent and tempting scent. The strong smell of fear and adrenaline, of panic, had subsided and he could smell her real essence.

It was sweet and with a hint of vanilla and Henry thought for a moment how it would be to really taste her.

He felt her shudder a bit when his cool lips touched the back of her hand but Emma didn´t retract her hand.

To have her in his bed and taste her blood in the thralls of passion, to taste her for the first time since he was starving so long…

But he had to give her time to adapt. Henry was so eager for her blood but after all what she had gone through he couldn´t simply pull her in his bed to have his way with her. She had been almost raped and killed by these friggin werewolves and won´t it have been for Josh who was friends with Aidan and by now also with him… He would have gone out and hunt down werewolves like rats.

But as it was with humans it also was with werewolves. There were good guys and bad guys. He know vampires who were friends with a werewolf…a guy called Pete who preferred to live in a mobile home with a front tent…hanging out most of the time in the open woods, living like a hippie from the 70s. This guy was peaceful and most of time he talked about his terms of relation with his inner wolf… Henry smiled at the idea, but Pete never did any harm to them nor participating in this natural born enemy thing

His thoughts were interrupted when the nurse called him by his name, telling him the cab was waiting now outside for them.

They left arm in arm, Henry supporting Emma, his arm hooked under, his free hand carefully wrapped around her arm in cast. Outside he helped her in the waiting cab, giving an address and a number to the driver. Emma was placed in the passenger´s seat and Henry took the backseat. This would give her a slight chance to jump from the car but he thought her to be that convinced to go with him that she won´t try tonight. And as a vampire it would be easy for him to catch up with her faster than with human speed.

No chance for her to escape! Fact was that if Emma won´t stay with him willingly he would have been forced to compel her, practically making her his private captive!

His very life would be up for discussion!

But in the moment Emma seemed to be a nice woman in general who he might become friends with. This would make things much easier. He had been alone over a very long time and his last relation, love affair, with a woman had been Suren, back in the thirties, before she had been grounded for eighty years and Aidan banished him from the Boston family. Aidan has had a relationship with Celine, a mortal woman over a long time. She had been fully aware of what he was. Sharing a real relationship, a love, with a mortal partner meant the human to know what he was and accepting it! But it also meant to live with somebody to see him/her grow old and finally die if a vampire won´t decide to turn the human.

Henry´s thought were going to a probable future with Emma, thinking it over and over again. He was a lonely soul, walking the streets of Boston and other cities since decades, searching for blood and deep in his heart he was longing for somebody to share his existence with him as a mortal.

He looked at the back of her head while the cab was driving through the dark streets. Emma was young…so young. She was a single woman with a lack of contact to others, her parents living up in New York City. She seemed to share only a few contacts, no human man in range to cross his path. Henry had checked her registration sheet and theoretically she made the optimum of a person to keep hidden from the public. Setting up a control system on her would be easy…best to make her feel being his love interest! Maybe it would be possible to develop a real relation with her, if she was willing to give in. To fake a love was possible but Henry rather wanted to prefer a true relationship in which trust was the base.

He was a survivor and he had gone to lengths for his life, even faking and deceiving humans when it was necessary to survive.

But he was longing for some happiness around with someone.

When the taxi stopped at a sidewalk, Henry slipped out of the car, opening the door for Emma. She turned her face to him, looked up into his face that bent down into the car, his hands stretched out to support her.

"Are we…? You´re living here…?" she asked and directed to the front of a house.

"Yeap, here we are, Emma…" They cab had stopped in front of a modern house with a naturally colored brick wall, a garage door beside the entrance that was protected by a large metal awning. She could not make out much in the darkness and the rain that was falling again, but there was a number beside the door that was lit up by a lamp. Anything…anywhere with a number

…2250

Emma had no clue where they were, which street, the less in which part of the city. Her knight in shining armor had brought her to a house deep in the night and normally she would have called herself a totally mad gal following a man she knew nothing of to his home. But the area looked civilized, none of these corners or areas of Boston where dark individuals were lurking from dark and narrow alleyways, hiding their rather criminal activities…

She felt Henry´s hands going for her forearms, carefully handling her arm in the cast and he supported her to the entrance, parking her under the large awning before he hushed back to the cab to pay the cabdriver.

Within seconds he was back at her side, behind her back, his hand going for the keys, unlocking the door and opening it to a large room. His hand switched the lights on and she found herself in a small hall that opened to a large room, obviously a living room. The furniture was of modern style, comfortable but none of this post modern designer materials. The room was exuding some coziness and Henry led her over to the couch.

"Make yourself at home, Emma…I´ll get you something to drink…"

Emma looked at him, her face tensed a bit.

"I…I don´t want drink…alcohol now!" she brought out. What if this guy was going to make her drunk for his own purposes?

"Of course not, Emma. You got medication! I would be mad to give you any alcohol now!" he denied her fears.

In the closed surroundings of his home her smell grew stronger. The smell, the promise of the blood running under her delicate skin… The tease was more intense now that she was here, away from the large hall of the hospital where her smell had mixed up with those of the other people around and the strong medical smell of the hospital.

Henry felt his eyes darkening, his fangs threatening to fall.

Abruptly he turned away from her. For sure Emma would panic again when she would see his vampire face with the unveiled expression of hunger. He pressed his lips onto each other, gulping hard and when he felt himself under control again he turned back to Emma, his breath slowing down again and his heartbeat became more slowly again.

Her smell and her whole appearance were such a tease for him and Henry was aware that it would be much more difficult to keep self-control with her than he had suggested before. His fists were clenched and he felt the tips of his nails dig into his palms so hard he meant to hear his skin crack. Hectically he watched down onto his palms where a thin line of blood droplets appeared. He wiped his palms over the back of his shirt, under his jacket and looked at Emma;

"I should get you something to drink…Do you want some coffee or…?"

"Coffee?...No…if you´re gonna have some water for me…The air in the hospital is so dry always…" she answered while she sank back into the upholstery of the couch.

"Okay!" Henry went into his kitchen to get a bottle of mineral water from the fridge.

Emma sank back against the back of the couch, her head tilting onto the upper edge. Her eyes fell shut for a moment and she tried to calm down her erratic breath. She felt slipping into a doze and woke up again with a start when the sound of a glass being put on the table brought her back into reality. She opened her eyes and saw a large glass of mineral water in front of her.

Henry kept himself from sitting beside her on the couch and so he took the chair on her right side. He sank back, folding his hands behind his neck, his fingers absently playing with the tips of his curly locks. For a moment he looked at her and none of both said a word, before Henry broke the silence. Emma seemed to be shy and she didn´t give the impression that she was a rather forwardly woman when it came to men.

"Okay…you should drink, Emma…for sure you lack of liquid…" he tried to calm her down, playing on his former education as a medic.

"Ya´re a nurse, Mr…uhm Durham…? Is that right? Durham?" She was not certain if she had gotten his name correctly when the nurse at the desk had called him by.

Henry nodded with a slight smile; "Yes, Durham is correct, but call me Henry simply…!"

"Is…uhm…you…uhm, I mean…you…Some people…they don´t like their…family´s name…" Emma tried it and her cheeks were flushing a bit when she tried to sound casually and not being insulting. On the other hand she didn´t want to be intruding.

"No. No Emma! I´m quite okay with my name but I´m so rarely called by it that I´m totally used to only being called Henry. Everybody who knows me calls me by my first name…" he smiled broadly.

The smile in his face with the cerulean eyes was washing away her fear that she might have insulted him unintentionally. Emma tried to arrange her thoughts and she felt her cheeks blushing a bit. The assault onto her and Henry´s sudden appearance on the…battlefield… had left her with a rarely experienced confusion. When she tried to recollect the details…what happened first and what came after Emma got the slight feeling that the immense stress had left her memory in a chaos. But she had heard that victims of accidents or crime often suffered from a temporary amnesia, a natural act of self protection for the mind when the events became too tremendous to cope with without suffering any serious damage.

When Emma came back from her thoughts she looked at Henry who was sitting again in the chair beside her, watching her with some slight concern but an expression of kindness on his face. She felt totally uncertain about what she should think about this guy who picked her up in an alleyway. Something in her rational mind told her to be careful with Henry.

He had picked up her amidst a life threatening situation, obviously being the saving angel, her knight in shining armor. But he had been appearing so fast on the scene that she couldn´t differ whether he had been jumping from a car or a nearby house entrance or if he had come running down the street when he got sight of a woman surrounded by a bunch of rapists. But she had been in danger from the very moment she had gone into their trap, so that she neither had time nor the coldness to look where he came from. Despite the fact that she had played through such a situation in her mind so often, the calm security of a familiar home was another area to think about than finally reacting in a real life situation when the heart was beating wildly from panic, the eyes were searching for an escape and her mind was cringing with fear, silently crying for any help by whomsoever! Being honest to herself she had to admit that all well thought strategies had gone down the drain when the men had her on the ground, this guy sitting on her, about to…prepare…her for his abettor.

Anywhere in her mind were foggy memories of a fight. A fight he had gone into so fast and with the result that the men were on the ground themselves faster than a human could do normally. But her rational part of mind went on to tell her that Henry maybe was simply a very well trained and experienced fighter like this Belgian guy…what was his name? Jean Claude van Damme? Any of these martial arts guys they were so familiar with from the movies.

She should be careful about this man she barely knew anything about, her instincts warned her but on the other side he had treated her with kindness, had taken care of her after the fight and obviously Henry´s friend was trustworthy because he eventually worked in a hospital as a nurse! Nurses were thought to be caring people and everything else but dangerous to anybody. As a result this man won´t be friends with a dangerous guy she tried to calm her mind. Nurses didn´t make friends with killers, even when at least anything like a large dog was killed in the fight. Emma had no clue and couldn´t bring herself to a decision where suddenly this large and dark haired dog had come from. Probably it was the dog of one of these guys, a kind of animalistic hunter and guard to them. Most people were afraid of large dogs and so they maybe used it as a weapon to bring their victims under control.

It was the only reasonable explanation for its appearance in the fight out of nowhere and all out of a sudden. A hot shudder ran over her back when any corner of her brain brought up an image from a long forgotten legend or had it been anything from a movie she had once watched?

A man turning into a wolf like thing, shape, creature at full moon…

She laughed out loud and Henry looked at her when her laughter sounded almost hysterical…

"Emma, what´s up?" he sounded concerned, watching her more closely, when Emma giggled behind her hand in front of her mouth. He could hear that she laughed out of nervousness, not the human laughter that indicated joy and fun about anything. Within a second he was in front of her, his hands going for her shoulders, comforting her. Emma laughed and her hand fell down and suddenly her laughter broke when her shoulders trembled, the shaking turning into a shudder. Her lips twitched and opened and she started to sniff and to sob. Tears were running down her cheeks when she started to cry suddenly.

Henry smelled the turning in her and for a moment he stood still, his hands on her shoulder and back and he breathed into her hair before he closed his hands around her and pulled her crying form into a comforting embrace. She was trembling in his arms and he smelled her human scent, it was so strong that it threatened to overwhelm his hunger ridden body.

The burning in his veins grew stronger until it reached the level of a fire and he swallowed down a growl that grew in his throat, his face was tensed with an expression of pain and desire for a moment and it took him much effort to regain control again.

When he felt himself capable of control again, his view went down her slim figure, trailing over her ruined and dirty shirt down to her dark blue jeans and the simple black pumps. At her left temple was a bruise that developed its full size now, shimmering in multiple colors. A dark violet and ugly stain on her soft and light-colored skin. His finger softly glided over it and her eyes twitched when he did it.

"Damn guys!" he cursed and looked at her with pity. His eyes threatened to turn black again but he fought it down. He smiled slightly and watched her into the eyes.

"You might want to clean you up, Emma. I have a shower in the bathroom, over there...you can make use of it..." Henry directed to the door at the end of the small corridor.

"I...I...maybe you´re right, but...I don´t want to make you more trouble..." she answered in a low voice with a hint of guilt.

"No way, honey...Don´t worry...I want you to feel somewhat more comfortable..." Henry carefully directed her over to the bathroom door, opened it for her and switched on the light.

"There are towels over there on the hooks and you will find everything beside, Emma..."

She didn´t ward him off, nodded only and when she tried to get rid of her shirt with only one hand, she moaned with anger when her arm got trapped in the sleeve.

"Let me help you..." Henry was suddenly behind her, carefully grabbing for her shirt and pulling it over her head. She blushed a bit and fumbled for her jeans with one hand.

Henry swallowed down a smile in an attempt not to make her feel embarrassed about her semi-helplessness. Emma was fairly handicapped with her arm in cast.

"Will you let me help you, Emma?" he asked her in a hushed voice. His face was bent over her shoulder and she felt his cool breath at her ear. For a moment it seemed to be cooler than normal but his voice made her stop thinking about.

His voice made her stop to think about anything in general.

His voice was soft and comforting and his hands went down to her hips. Emma sighed and lifted her hands so far he could get hold of her belt.

"Shall we...?" he whispered with a slight smile that she could see in the reflection in the mirror above the sink. Emma nodded with a sigh. She would manage the belt but stripping down the jeans with only one hand would be a real challenge, if not impossible but at least cumbersome. She felt a bit dizzy and a wave of weariness crept up from her feet to her head. The events of the evening were starting to take its toll on her and the thing she mostly wanted now was to be cleaned up and lying in a bed. Which one would be irrelevant now. Henry had suggested that she would be safe in here with him.

Being honest to herself she had to confess that the attack had somewhat shaken her to the inner core and spending a night alone at home, even when it was her own home, wasn´t the best option now.

Henry had saved her from this guys and offering her some shelter instead of lying in her bed alone, lonesome and falling prey to any nightmarish dreams...like in her childhood... This imagination made her shiver unintentionally.

_tbc_


	2. Chapter 2

Henry felt her shiver and he stepped in front of her, his hands closing in on her shoulders, pulling her nearer to him.

"Emma, what´s up?" His hand went to her temple and forehead, feeling over the skin. Was she going into a fever? His heart faltered and then was beating again in its regular speed when the thought of losing his safe source subsided when her skin felt warm and soft as before. He could feel and see no signs of any sickness on her. Emma only looked tired what was quite normal after what had happened to her.

"I´m okay...just...just...tired..." she replied and Henry nodded. With a smile he added; "Then we should get you cleaned up and put you into the bed." His voice got that convincing timbre he usually used on willing or not so willing donors. But Emma didn´t show any resistance to him.

Good! He thought. That would make it much easier to get to her blood. His rational mind told him to handle her as a donor, but his emotional side made him seeing her as more than that. Emma was so sweet and attractive and when he could win her beyond the blood thing he would maybe find a human soul mate like Aidan had found in Celine.

He felt pity for her when she twitched when she moved her arm upwards and in the moment it was advantageous that she was handicapped. Not that she would be able to fight him of and escape from him, but her situation made her more receptive for his intentions.

Keep her in here under all circumstances he told himself over and over again. Emma was his key to survival! If she would become his love interest...the better for both of them.

Henry wasn´t resistant to women at all beside using them as a blood source. He had fallen in love with Suren for his career advancement among the vampire society. As a newly turned vampire and due to his intelligence and education he had been ambitious but it had ended up in his banishment from the Boston community.

Eighty years of loneliness out there in the streets of Boston and outside the city had taught him the cold strategies of survival. But this woman here meant more to him than that. He felt strangely attracted to her beside the source of clean blood she represented. She was butter in his hands but he could make it all better than that for them...

His fingers went for the belt, opening it and when she kept silent he stripped the jeans down to her ankles, revealing her slim legs and the well-formed belly. His view slipped down and her pubic region was only hidden by a small black lace and cotton panty. He felt growing hard and Henry closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath unnoticed by her. When he regained control he directed to the shower cubicle.

"We should cover your cast..." he mumbled and he left the bathroom. Outside he breathed deeply and stopped dead in his tracks. Her slim figure and her smell threatened to overwhelm him. The promise of blood, sweet, clean blood was almost driving him mad.

The only way to get rid of it, to escape the sweet temptation would be to run out of his home and down the streets. Away from her! Henry bent down, laying his hands on his knees and he took a couple of breaths, demanding himself to stay calm.

He would feed on her...

...but not in the shower.

He would have her in his bed where he could have his way with her and she would be able to enjoy it.

After a few seconds he straightened up and his heartbeat became calm again. He searched through a closet in the kitchen and when he entered the bathroom again he brought in a plastic bag and a rubber band, pulled it over her arm to protect the cast in the shower.

Emma giggled a bit when she saw it and then her face tensed again when Henry opened the shower door for her. She turned her head with an expression of uncertainty on her face.

He won´t step into the shower with her, she thought. Otherwise she would start to scream! Screaming loud enough to call upon the rest of the apartment building.

Her left hand grabbed for the door and it smashed closed in her haste. Her hand was trembling and she breathed hard, staring at the milky surface of the glass wall. Her heart was in her mouth and the pulse was pounding in her head. She gasped, her eyes fixed onto the front wall of the shower. Emma meant to see his face pressing against the glass from outside and she stepped back, trembling and her hand going for the handle on the tiles, her fingers closing around it until her knuckles turned white. It took her more than a few moments to regain her composure again. The hard she stared there was no face outside the glass. Only innocent milk glass and white tiles in her back. Her fearful mind had been playing tricks on her. Emma breathed deeply and she let go the handle and turned on the faucets after she had stripped down her panty and her bra, lying it outside what for she had to open the door a crack.

Warm water was streaming down from the shower head and she bent back her head and the water ran over her chest and streamed down over her belly until it disappeared in the sink. Emma turned the water on until it was building up a warm pool around her feet. She cleaned up herself all over once and when she had finished she cleaned up all over a second time as if to get rid of some sticky and gross dirt that was adhering to her. Emma showered again, washing her hair and when she had finished she opened the door a crack. Carefully she lurked outside but the bathroom was empty.

Henry obviously had left, had left her to let her some privacy.

Emma breathed with relief; Henry acted like a respectful man, not prowling around the shower like the son of a bitch. This guy who had picked her up from a crime scene at night... He had saved her life and these bad guys were killed or gone... When she tried to remember details everything turned out to melt into a big colored blur. Strangely she wasn´t aghast about him killing them so easily. She had been in danger and he had come to her rescue, like the knight in shining armor, like a guardian angel, out of nowhere and with some speed that one could only call non-human if not preternatural if one was about to believe in such matter. Emma felt like standing beside herself, watching herself acting like a copy of her.

For a moment there was silence and she heard her own blood streaming in her ears and she felt uncertain, unsteady on her legs. The mirror was damp from the shower and Emma grabbed a towel from the seat beside the door. It was large enough to dry her and wrapping into it afterwards. She stumbled to the sink, her fingers went for her hair when she tried to disentangle the long tendrils. Emma found a comb and when she had finished her hair she sank onto the seat when the unsteadiness in her legs remained.

Hastily she put on her panty, her bra and her jeans again what made her moan with frustration when she had to fumble with the pants. With much effort she anyway managed it to pull over her shirt. More she didn´t feel able to by now.

Helplessly she stared at the walls and the tiles started to melt into each other when tears appeared in the corner of her eyes, watering her eyesight and then they began to run down her cheeks. Her shoulders twitched when she started to sob, too exhausted to think about that he maybe would consider her as to be a weak and whiny woman.

In the moment she was ignorant to everything but her inner pain.

Henry´s vampire hearing had provided him with the sounds from the bathroom which indicated that Emma had finished showering and now he heard a low crying that came from inside the closed door. He rose from his place on the large couch and stepped to the bathroom door. Henry knocked at the door and when no answer came from inside he carefully opened it a crack.

"Emma? Emma, hon...what´s up?" he asked.

No answer, only soft cries and sobbing. Henry slowly opened the door and entered the bathroom. Emma was sitting on the seat beside the sink, her head sunken down and when he came to her she lifted her head and her face was covered in tears.

"Emma!" Henry crouched in front of her, his hands going for her shoulders and neck.

Her pulse was beating wildly under his fingertips and it felt like hot red fire. He gasped when the hunger caught him with full force now. In the last moment he could swallow down an unintentionally growl that would have been enough to let her panic. The beast, the wild animal within him was raging now and growling and going for the bars of the cage he had build up over the years to reign his vampire side in. Learning and regaining control was essential to a vampire´s survival. That was what Aidan had taught him first! Hiding a corpse was one thing but feeding without exposing himself to humans had become essential in the eighty years of his banishment. Otherwise he would have gone ashes long ago.

"Emma, dear...it´s all okay! All okay! You´re safe in here...you won´t have to worry, Emma! Look into my eyes, Emma!" Henry demanded, his voice all vampire, all compelling now. Emma twitched and shuddered under his hands, her shoulders shaking when she tried to fix his view with her watering eyes. She gasped, sniffed and new sobs broke free. Henry looked at her when his thumbs were comforting her cheeks, his voice compelling but in an attempt to comfort her, to calm her down.

"Emma...it´s all okay! You´ll stay with me...you´ll stay here overnight and you are safe in here with me. I won´t let anybody harm you again, honey...Hmm? Let´s get you outta here..."

Henry heaved her up onto his arms for what he needed more strength than usual and it made him feel the starving more definitely. Her head fell against his chest and he whispered into her hair;

"I´ll get you into your bed, Emma…"

He could barely hide the timbre of hunger that was growling now in his intestines and veins. Her scent was so sweet. She smelled of life and blood and her crying made her all so much more vulnerable.

"Sschhh…it´s all okay, Emma…all okay…you´re safe in here…" Henry pushed the bedroom door open with one foot, carrying Emma into the room and he carefully placed her on the comforter. She sank into the soft surface and when he saw her spread out on the large bed she looked more helpless than ever.

The voice in him told him to take what was to become his. Taking her and to feed on her to tilt his burning and gnawing hunger. He would have most liked to pull down her clothes, baring her skin and biting down hard to drink, drinking to banish the constant companionship of starvation from his body that had become so common over the last months. The very moment he woke up until the moment when the sleep of exhaustion caught him he had felt the constant presence of hunger. In the beginning Henry had tried to suppress it, to ignore it but the longer he couldn´t feed, the more present the hunger became despite all strategies to avoid it.

Henry felt his eyes turning black, his heart was beating faster when his nostrils widened and he inhaled her tempting scent. He felt his fangs itching to fall and it took him all concentration not to let go and...

Take her just right away.

Emma looked up to him when she saw him watching her with an expression that was best to explain as indecision.

"What´s up, Henry…?" she mumbled with lids halfway down, her voice dozy.

Henry stood beside the bed, his hand went hastily through his curly hair and he bit his lower lip. The urge to feed was growing with every second he remained beside her and for the first time since weeks and months he felt uncertain and torn back and forth like the moment when Aidan had him put in the field after turning him, a victim in front of him. He was torn back and forth between the longing for the blood, the warm red flood in Emma that would tilt his hunger, the burning, the cramps in him, and the feeling that he was about to betray her trust when he would feed on her.

Emma was a shocked victim of a crime, of an almost-rape and offering her a safe shelter here and then feeding on her would belie his intentions, his obvious harmlessness. Henry felt deeply attracted to her, more than only be the urge to feed on human blood and she looked so helpless, so delicate and breakable to him. Simply feeding on her would be rude, even when it would be hidden under his experienced compelling skills. He so much liked to give her something back in exchange for her precious blood but how should he manage it without raising her fear again?

Under normal circumstances he either compelled donors into letting him drink or he preferred to feed on them while having sex with them, turning the experience in a positive one when it happened in mutual agreement.

"What´s going on, Henry? You´re looking so…so uncertain? So concerned! I…I´m tired and my arm is broken but I guess…I will be well soon again. Only need some sleep…" she started and she lifted her healthy arm and her hand ended up on the back of his forearm.

Henry looked at her warily. Her fingers were warm and her skin so soft. He trembled from inside, the anticipation let his body tickle all over.

Blood.

Blood. Henry meant to taste her sweetness on his tongue, now that he didn´t even touch her. A hot red cloud crept up from his inner cage, a wave of warmth of which he didn´t know where he took it from because he was starving since weeks and the hunger had turned into pain long ago. Meanwhile he was so far away from the warm wellness he normally had felt when he was about to feed. His body was drained, starved down to a level on which living was still possible but every day, every hour meant pure effort to keep him upright. Normally his body shouldn´t been able now to generate such a feeling, he thought.

It must have to do with Emma herself he thought.

His craving for women normally focused onto their blood and the passion of the sexual experience, the mix of sex and feeding that heightened the act for both sides.

The warmth that was emanating now from her fingers, crawling into his arm was almost irresistible. He knew pretty well that he won´t be able to hold back anymore when he would sit down onto the bed beside her. His conscious mind was appealing to listen to reason but the hunger within him, the barely controlled and the less tamed animal within growled and gnawed at its ties, running against the bars of his inner cage.

Henry might have cried out with discrepancy and urge and he knew that…

…he had lost now that he seated himself beside her, sinking onto his left elbow…

Emma looked at him and carefully he turned his face to her, testing for uncertain waters. Her expression was that of curiosity and a slight exhaustion. Her heart was beating calmly and he could smell no fear on her. He really didn´t want to make her afraid or worse, drive her into panic. It was giving him a bad conscience that he was longing so much for her blood now that he was about to break his don´t-touch-poor-Emma-rule but maybe if he would go forward slowly enough…

…offering her the feeling that either she herself would give in or that she would at least accept any tenderness from him so that finally he could have her in mutual agreement. Emma was a victim of crime and it would be highly risky to have his usual way with her; mixing feeding with sex. Henry wanted to give her any compensation for her blood that he needed so urgently and he needed it now! He knew that at any time later, under any which way of circumstances he won´t be able to hold back any longer.

Better to offer her some comfort and relax than to feed on her like a predatory being. The worst thing that could happen was that Emma would react with sudden fear and panic. He had not forgotten when the girls, who had been brought in by Aidan to feed him after the skinning, began to panic when Aidan´s influence faded and any control had slipped.

This was not allowed to happen here again. Not yet and not with Emma! She was not any random woman and donor, she was more than that. Emma was a precious gift to him and Henry was determined to keep her here in his rooms. That would only work when she would trust him and when she would feel some love for him. She was way too precious to get lost or to be betrayed in any way.

Henry noticed that she was still watching him from her position on the bed and he slightly bent over her, his hand went for her temple and with the tip of his fingers he stroked back her tousled hair.

"Is there any pain, dear…?" he asked in a low and soft voice. "Tell me! I don´t want you to feel any discomfort or pain…" Henry slightly smiled at her and when she shook her head no under his hand, he trailed his finger down over her cheekbone.

"We should get you outta these clothes…they are wet from the rain and from the street…" he mumbled and rose into an upright position.

Emma lifted her head and Henry shoved his hand behind her shoulder supporting her when she sat up. With her left hand she fumbled for the seam of her shirt.

"let me help you, Emma..." Henry smiled and carefully grabbed the seam of her shirt, pulling it from her jeans and he helped her to pull it off over her head.

"You better should make use of a buttoned shirt as long as your arm is in this cast..."

"Oh my god...I...I don´t have clothes with me over here..." she sighed and blushed.

"No matter...I can get you some, Emma."

Emma thought of him going to her home and she didn´t like the fact that he maybe meant to go through her rooms and her closets.

"I can get some clothes at home tomorrow..." she softly protested.

"You should not go home Emma..." he stroked her temple and his fingers trailed down through her long hair. He had to keep her in here at all costs. No strolling outside with the risk that she would catch the flu! His heartbeat sped up for a moment before it calmed down again. He forced himself into hiding his fear that she could escape and tried to tell himself that she would stay when he could convince her that he was I love with her.

Emma was sweet and she was a woman worth to be in love with. He so long had missed a relationship with anyone.

"Why not...?" she mumbled.

"It´s not good for you to be at home where you´re alone, honey...I don´t want you to become afraid...I...care a lot about you..." he bent deeper and the tip of his nose was gliding over her hair down to her ear and his nostrils widened when he inhaled her scent.

Emma didn´t retract from him and he went on, his breath strolling over her delicate skin. He puffed slightly over her ear and Emma giggled a bit. This encouraged Henry and his hand followed on the other side of her head, comforting her temple and her neck, his fingers softly rubbing and kneading the tensed muscle strings. Emma sighed low under her breath which indicated him that she seemed to feel comfortable with it.

"You´re so tensed, Emma..." he whispered while his fingers went down her back.

"Hmm...could get use of some massage...my neck is often tensed...from work..." she responded to the comfortable feeling of his long slim fingers trailing down from her hair line to the line of her shoulders.

"Okay, Emma...we can get that better..." he promised in a low voice. "let me help you..." His fingers slipped down to the hook of her bra and he opened it.

Her hand went for the cups and when the straps slipped down her shoulders she took hold of them, slightly pressing them to her breast.

Henry´s hand went down to the zipper of her jeans and he opened it while he looked into her face, searching for signs of defense.

"Take the jeans off, Emma. Then you can turn over onto your belly and I can massage your neck and back..." he suggested.

Emma tried to kick off her jeans and Henry grabbed for the waistband of her jeans and the legs, pulling them down. The jeans landed on the rug beside the bed.

"Let me help you, dear!" He supported her arm in cast and helped her to turn over on her belly, pulling the bra off under her. She softly moaned in protest.

"It´s in the way anyway..."Henry whispered with a smile. He inhaled her scent deeply and his hand went back to her shoulders, stroking and kneading them, his fingers feeling for the tensed strings and the line of her muscles.

Emma was right. She was totally tensed due to the events of the hours before, maybe also from working at a desk over hours.

Henry enjoyed the feeling of her warm and soft skin under his fingers and her scent made the hunger even worse but he had to hold back. She was no simple food anywhere in the streets like he had been able to feed from before the flu made every meal a walk on the blade and death became a common guest among the vampires. It took him all effort to hold back and to concentrate onto her without losing control and simply biting down and drink until his senses would slip...

Emma moaned when his fingers moved over a hard knot in her shoulders. Henry bent down and his breath went over her skin and she shivered slightly.

"Does that hurt, honey...?" he whispered into her neck and Emma moaned a low yes. "We will see..." his fingers were gliding over her shoulders up to the line of her hair and he stroked the tendrils to one side, his hands comforting her neck and moving up to her ears and down again to her shoulders. Henry felt her relax a bit and he went on with his massage. The feeling of her skin and her body under his hands let his hunger increase and he felt how he grew hard. His eyes were darkening and his fangs were itching to drop. He breathed deeply and closed his eyes, inhaling her scent of life and the tease of her blood that was running under her skin.

Warm, red, hot and sweet.

Blood

A red cloud threatened to shade his mind and he pulled his head back, away from her skin and her warmth. His hands were lying on her back when he tried to regain control. Emma turned her head a bit when he stopped.

"Why...why don´t you go on...?" she asked and slightly turned over to one side. A mere second before she would see his blackened eyes he turned his face away from her and closed his eyes. Henry fought for breath and it took him a couple of seconds until he felt his eyes turn back to normal, the heat slipping back what indicated that his eyes were his usual cerulean color again. And he could dare to open his eyes again.

Emma looked at him and her healthy hand went for his forearm.

"What is it? Did...did I say something...wrong...? I...hope I didn´t tell any...thing when I was in the doctor´s room...Dunno what he...oh my God, what he shot me...!" she tried to smile apologetically. "I...I never took any drugs or any stuff like psychotropics...I´m afraid I´m not used to it..." she mumbled. Her view fixing onto his face.

"He simply gave you an anesthetic for fixing your arm...you aren´t stoned, my dear...I can..." he stopped before the word "scent" slipped from his lips, exposing his vampire skills and he corrected himself; "I can allay your doubts, Emma..." he smiled at her and stroked over her temple, his fingers slipping into her neck and Henry bent down, took a deep breath, hesitating a moment and when Emma didn´t turn away her face he softly kissed her onto her lips.

Henry felt her pause a moment before she hesitatingly responded to his kiss, answering it shyly.

"Thank...you..." she breathed into his kiss; "...for...hel...ping me..."

"You´re welcome..." he whispered while his mouth opened and his tongue worked its way between her slightly opened lips. Her breath smelled sweet and like vanilla and he closed his eyes, his fingers comforting the side of her head and her chin when he lifted her head a bit and intensified the kiss. Emma seemed to enjoy it because she didn´t retract from him. Her arm slipped around his back when she completely turned over onto her back again. She sighed into his kiss. Henry´s mouth retracted from hers to give her some space for breathing.

He looked at her, his left hand in her neck while the thumb of his right hand trailed over her lips.

"Ssshhh...it´s all okay..." he whispered and bent down again, his mouth trailing over her lips and her cheek, down to the side of her neck. His tongue licked her earlobe and her scent threatened to overwhelm him. He swallowed hard and pulled back a bit, his hand gliding down to her hip. He felt her twitch a bit and looked into her eyes.

Emma looked a bit irritated, somewhat uncertain.

He could force her by compelling but he didn´t want to. Henry decided to give her some time and his hand was resting on her lower abdomen. Maybe she had mistaken him for what he started, only thinking that she answered his kiss out of thankfulness for saving her. He read the unspoken question in her eyes and her pulse was speeding up.

He didn´t want her to be afraid of him.

"Emma..." his voice calm and soft.

"I...I...what are you...doing...?" she whispered, her voice uncertain as if...

Oh my, he thought. Did Emma never have a man with her in bed that she was so hesitating, so uncertain? He felt her slightly trembling under his hand. Give her time, he demanded to himself. He didn´t want to force her into something right now. He needed to feed urgently and he wanted to give her something back in exchange, wanted her to enjoy it. She barely escaped a rape and having his way with her now meant that she would have to agree. She had trusted him when he took her with him and he couldn´t betray her trust into him.

"Emma, dear...I won´t do anything you don´t want...I mean..." he carefully began to test out uncertain waters. Henry waited. If she would say No now that would it be for tonight. He wanted her to know what he was about to do but he needed her agreement. Otherwise it would be rape, the same crime he had saved her from a couple of hours ago!

She moved uncomfortably under him and he felt her trembling.

"You...you...I don´t know if..." her voice lowered down to a whisper, barely audible now but for his sensitive hearing. Her pulse was beating fast and she scented of...fear.

Oh my god!

"...if I want this...I mean...I have...I don´t know..."she brought out.

"Emma...look into my eyes..." no command. He begged her, his fingers comforting her temple. "I won´t harm you...you are way too precious to me. You´re so sweet, Emma. Hmm? You´re so beautiful, so sweet and I don´t want to hurt you. Did...did you ever have...have a man with you? I mean..." he waited to give her time before he went on. "...having...sex...?"

A long moment she didn´t answer and when she finally answered it was a whisper. Uncertain, shy.

"...no..."

Emma sounded as if she felt shame about her answer that a woman in her early twenties didn´t have a whole bunch of guys all night long.

Henry breathed, barely hiding a surprised gasp.

"Oh..." Okay would be the wrong word. She was still a virgin. Okay. That was the reason for her reaction. She had kissed him back out of thankfulness, nothing more! He really felt something for her beyond the simple and brutal hunger that was raging in his body since weeks, her beauty and her shyness had attracted him to her.

"Emma, I don´t want to hurt you...you´re so beautiful...do you know that...?" he comforted her temple, her cheek.

" Yes...but...but don´t hurt me..." she trembled.

"For heaven´s sake no! I will be very careful...if you´ll let me do you´ll enjoy it...no harm...I want you to enjoy it, Emma...no fear, no pain..."

He would have to be careful with her, slowly and tender, gentle. Emma had no experience, the less the experience of one of his usual donors he has had at the Halloway blood den back then. Emma was tired, shaken to the core and to have his way with her now to give her something back for the blood he would take, would need all his well-trained control not to exhaust her. A vampire´s stamina could exhaust a human woman easily. Willing donors normally expected it and could cope with it, enjoying it, but Emma was far from both!

It would be a hard task to keep control, not to give in the hunger. He was starving since weeks and it would need all his will power to restrict himself in this feeding. And fate had led a woman to him just now who was totally inexperienced.

Why now?

Why would he have to cope with it right now in this situation? Starved, weakened and fighting with his inner animal, the vampire within, that demanded to take what was his, to feed his starving body and to regain his usual strength, giving in the basic instincts of survival!

But he had gone through worse! He had kept control when Suren had skinned him alive and he was about to die if not feeding from a human source. It wasn´t him when control slipped. It had been Aidan´s problems with compelling, a thing Bishop so often had complained about.

Emma´s arm sank back and she withdrew a bit from him and Henry could literally feel her uncertainty. On the one hand she lunged for some comfort, some safety he could offer to her, on the other hand she felt uncertain if she wanted him to have sex with her just now, which would be her first time in general. She always has had imaginations about how her first time would be; romantic, with a man she would be deeply in love with, a sweet guy who would take care of her want, gentle, tender and loving...

And now?

She knew less to nothing about this Henry Durham but he had these rooms, a friend working in a hospital and that he didn´t hesitate to go to lengths when he rescued her from this bunch of rapers. He had fought fast, swift and acting coldly when killing these men. Emma shuddered a bit, she felt like waking up from a dream, waking up into a movie where men simply killed other men if necessary with the plain right of the good and stronger one.

And with this man she was about to make first time love! No, not love making but simply having sex! She felt totally uncertain about herself, acting as if she was watching herself from outside, watching another woman who was her, doing things she never would have imagined doing in her strangest dreams.

Her mother had warned her about men, their simple, rather biologically based, sexual desire without consideration for a woman´s feelings. "Emma, wait until the right guy will come! A man who really loves you and to whom you are willing to give yourself totally! A man who´s worth it! Otherwise you may regret it later that you have dumped this gift to an anybody!"

Under half closed lids she lurked at Henry, her view trailing over his young face, the curly brown hair and his cerulean eyes. She had to confess that she felt strangely attracted to him in a way she couldn´t define to herself.

He looked noway the way she had thought her loving boyfriend would look when she would met him any day. The less like the man she had imagined to have sex with, to give her virginity to him as a gift of love. Her mother had defined imaginations about how the man for her daughter had to be and how he had to look. But she had chosen her husband two and a half decades ago. And that meant a large difference to nowadays when women dated men out of their own, deciding if and when to have sex, with whom they ever wanted.

Her mom was a caring one but she was raised in another age, under other rules in the society. When women coming from a good family listened to their parents in the question of which man would be the right one for them. Love hadn´t been out of the question then, decisions hadn´t been made simply out of rational reasons but such a daughter took her parents advice in respect for them knowing what would be good for her.

"Emma..." Henry´s soft voice was bringing her back to the reality of the here and now. "Emma, honey..." he looked at her. She couldn´t have heard the hunger behind his voice for what she would have to be a vampire.

He could so easily put force on her by compelling her into giving in to his want and urges. But he didn´t want to simply overwhelm her now. Emma was kinda traumatized by what had happened this evening and the last what she needed now was to be put through another, for her, incalculable situation that would leave her back stricken with fear.

He couldn´t imagine what he otherwise could do to soften the fact that he would feed on her than to tie it into sex. Simply compelling her into letting him feed and having her waking up in the morning with slightly healed over bite marks would even traumatize her more. He could obliterate her memory of him feeding from her, but the traces on her skin would be visible for some two days. Making her think about what might have happened to her, and worse...growing imaginations about vampires and him being such a creature.

Emma was all but a stupid woman, no simple minded victim or, on the other hand, a willing donor who fully knew into what she was giving in. The second one maybe would come later when she would become used to him.

But now she simply needed to relax.

"Emma, dear, don´t be afraid...I wouldn´t harm you..."

"I...I´m not sure if...ogh my goodness...if I want to do it...with you. My mom...she would...she wanted that I..." Emma stuttered.

"Your mom isn´t in here. It´s you to decide, Emma! She may care for you ever so kindly but it´ll be totally your own decision, Emma! You...you are so sweet to me, Emma, so precious...so please don´t think that I´ll offering this to you out of any...habit. I won´t simply do so to any woman...believe me, please, Emma...!"

Liar! You are a damn good liar, Henry! His mind shot at him and it made him grin from inside. But one thing was true; Emma was very special to him and he wanted to do her any good for her blood.

He would feed tonight!

That was out of the question.

The question was only if he would simply feed on her without any consideration or if he would make her enjoy it!

"I...I don´t know, Henry...but..." her voice lowered down to a whisper and she slightly smiled but it looked nervously rather than convinced. He felt so pity for her. Poor Emma.

"You want it too, Emma, ain´t you...?" he softly answered. "I can make it a special experience for you, honey..." Henry whispered, caressing her cheek with his fingers, stroking back a tendril of her long hair that was still moist from the shower.

She looked at him, her face tensed by her uncertainty.

"I..I´m afraid...I have no...practice..." she smiled helplessly. She couldn´t simply be lying under him and letting him go with her, she thought. She didn´t have sex before but Henry gave her the impression that he was pretty experienced with women. Emma was a bit afraid of disappointing him when she wouldn´t know how to react to his caresses.

"There is no practice, simply enjoy it, honey..." Henry bent deeper and softly kissed her on the lips. Hesitatingly she answered his kiss and he intensified it. His hand went down to her hips and without watching his fingers slipped between her skin and her panty. With the other hand he caressed her temple while he kissed her again.

"Relax...Emma...relax, I won´t hurt you..." he whispered under the kiss and with her left arm she grabbed around his shoulder. He felt her shudder when his fingers went down between her legs.

"Tell me what you like, Emma...tell me how you mostly enjoy it...!"

"I...I...oh goodness...Henry..."

Henry kissed her again, his finger was gliding deeper, feeling for her sensitive spot. She moaned low under her breath.

"Did you ever...touch yourself, Emma, dear...?" he whispered.

"Yes...yes...but..." she pressed out.

"And? It feels soo good...ain´t it?" Henry took up when she shyly broke.

She nodded and her moan answered his question when he caressed her.

"But..." keep Mom out of this she warned herself. He won´t like to hear about Mom right now.

"What but?" Henry smiled at her and kissed her again.

"It´s...it´s said that...a woman...a woman should only have...vaginal orgasms...other is...is kiddy stuff..." Emma slightly smiled and he could see how shy she was to talk about it.

"Nonsense!" Henry lifted his head a bit so he could look into her eyes. "don´t believe old washerwomen...There´s no...only! I can make you feel and enjoy a thousand ways..." he whispered, his voice a promise."There´s no right and wrong about the way you enjoy it, Emma!" He intensified his caressing and she twitched and he felt her spread her legs to give him better access.

Deep inside she was afraid that he could hurt her but she wanted to believe that he won´t. Henry bent deeper and kissed her cheek, his tongue and lips gliding to her ear where he nibbled at her earlobe. He caught the tissue with blunt teeth, softly nibbling and licking. Emma giggled and twitched when his hand moved between her legs, caressing her clit and the entrance to her channel. She moaned deeply, moving by instinct against his hand and he inserted one of his fingers into her entrance.

"Do you like this, hon?" he tested uncertain waters, massaging her walls while his thumb worked her clit.

Most women liked to be prepared but with Emma he decided to go on carefully. She was inexperienced and he felt the tightness of her hymen. He would have to be especially careful when he would finally enter her for not hurting her or having her clenching. Henry´s lips worked their way down the side of her neck and when he felt her pulse under his lips he had to fight for control. The hunger was burning in his veins and her sweet scent and the warmth of her skin almost drove him mad with hunger for her blood. Henry knew that from now on there was no way back!

He would feed on her tonight!

Emma gasped low under her breath and her hips moved with a twitch. He felt her tense a bit.

"Relax...relax, hon..." he whispered under a kiss. At least she seemed to have some experience with this kind of caressing. He had to find out what she knew and would be willing to accept. He wanted her to relax and to enjoy, not becoming afraid of him. He has had women he lost count of a long time ago and Emma was not the first woman who was a virgin when he had taken her into his bed. The burning hunger made it more difficult to go on slowly with her and to give her time to interact with him. From what his finger felt she was pretty tight and Emma would need some restraint from Henry´s side to adapt to his size finally.

Her scent was overwhelming, her human scent and the promise of her healthy, her clean blood. He had searched so long for a clean and safe source! Normally he would have compelled her into blood donation simply, but she had barely escaped a cruel attack and having her in his bed needed him to be extraordinary careful with her.

"Relax sweetie..." He felt growing hard and as casually as possible he managed it to strip off his jeans. Emma´s view went down to his belly where his pants stretched over his hardening cock. Her breath grew a bit faster and for a mere second there was a hint of...fear in her view. For sure she wore some fear with her for the moment he would enter her for the first time in her life.

As much as he would have liked it to enter her now, tilting his growing arousal by ramming into her, he ruled himself in. Henry´s lips trailed down her neck, her shoulder and his tongue licked around her left nipple where he could feel her heart beating in her chest, speeding up. Her left hand hesitantly went up into his curls on his right temple and he smiled at her. Henry´s head came up and moved a bit so that her fingers slipped into his neck. He moaned low when her fingers caressed his curly hair and the skin in his neck, showing her that he liked it, encouraging her to go on.

Emma felt a bit uncertain if she would do the right thing but his reaction showed her that he felt comfortable with it. Henry licked her nipples and took the soft tissue between his lips, sucking softly, his tongue playing with the hardening tips while his hand worked her channel and her clit. Emma moaned when he intensified his ministrations, feeling her tense and a soft flush began to color her cheeks.

"Won´t hurt you, Emma...I wanna feel you so good...! Does that feel good to you, hm...? Tell me!" he whispered in a hushed voice.

"Ye...yes..." she gasped.

He wanted to send her over the edge a couple of times before he would carefully penetrate her. Making her feel comfortable with him and relaxing.

Emma felt his finger moving around in her channel, making her feel things she never found out on her own before. He seemed to know thousand points to feel good with. His finger moved in and out, moistening her with her own liquid, covering her entrance and labia with her own wetness until she was slippery when he inserted a second finger into her. Moving contrary while his thumb massaged her clit. Emma´s gasping grew harder and faster until she almost screamed when he finally sent her over the edge. She climaxed hard and intense and he played with her going for a second climax, trying to find out how much she could take. Trying to find out if he could make her climax a couple of times in a row.

Emma winced and moved under his hand, her left hand digging deep into his neck when she climaxed again and again.

When Henry felt and heard her breath fast and hard, her heart beating wildly he slowed down for not exhausting her and giving her some time to relax, to come down again. She felt his finger still resting inside her and he lowered his belly to her belly, sinking with his cock between her legs. He wanted her to feel his hardness, pressing himself onto her to subside his own arousal by feeling her.

"Don´t...don´t hurt me... she whispered anxiously.

"No way, hon...I never would, Emma, darling..." he kissed her again. Henry rubbed his cock over his own hand that was still on and inside her. He gasped when he felt himself tense and felt his growing arousal. His lips went over her shoulder, up to her cheek. He licked her earlobe, nibbling with blunt teeth and Emma giggled, his breath that was speeding up now was hard and gasping in her ear.

Henry inhaled her sweet scent and it made him shiver with anticipation. He could scent her arousal and it made it the more harder to keep control, not giving in simply and biting down hard to feed on her precious blood. The hunger was growing worse in him and her heartbeat was pounding in his ears, reverberating in his torso and down to his belly like the beats of drumsticks on a large drum. The blood was streaming in his ears and he felt like he was going to faint from a massive blood loss. The shapes of his bedroom dissolved into a wave of fog and he lifted his head, taking in a desperate breath, more a gasp than normal breathing.

When his lips detached from Emma´s, she looked into his face, astonishment in her face.

"Aren´t you...? Aren´t you...well, Henry...?" she sounded uncertain.

Had she done anything wrong? Oh goodness, she was so inexperienced and maybe she had..." her thoughts were tumbling over.

Henry tried to focus on her face. The walls came nearer and went away again, fading, wavering. For a mere second he closed his eyes, trying to clear his sight again.

A red cloud was wavering behind his closed lids.

Red.

Blood.

It was impossible to tell her now what was going on with him, that he was feeling like fainting from hunger.

He hadn´t felt like that since the moment when the stake, driven by the french soldier, went into his belly, piercing his abdominal artery and the blood began to pour out like from a faucet. His very life running away in a stream, river like...

Blood.

Her sweet human scent almost drove him mad with hunger.

Blood!

The word was pounding in his mind with animalistic force, again and again, and he gasped.

"I´m...I´m okay, honey..." he pressed out, kissing her fast and with hunger driven eagerness.

"Touch me...touch me, Emma...please...oh please, Emma..." he gasped under the kisses. He groaned when her healthy hand touched his cock hesitantly.

Carefully her fingertips played with the head of his cock that had become slippery with the first drops of cum. Henry groaned when he grew harder. Hesitantly Emma moved her fingers upwards when Henry´s hand grabbed hers, his fingers closing around her wrist, urging her to close her fingers around his cock when he moved in deeper.

"Touch me, Emma...yes, that...Oh my goodness, sweetie..." he gasped and his hips moved, rubbing himself in her hand when she took up, stroking his length. Henry felt his tension rising until he couldn´t hold back any longer.

His eyes turned black and he gritted his teeth, let out an almost animalistic groan when he came hard and intense and he exploded in her hand. He sank onto her belly, kissing her and smelling the mix of her and his own passion. Her hand dug into his curls and she moaned with surprise when his seed dripped down her inner thighs.

It took Henry a moment to come down and he felt able to go on all night long, growing hard again when she stroked his cock.

He bent down to her ear, whispering; "Are you ready, Emma, will you let me please you, hon? I don´t hurt you...I´ll be very careful...I want you to feel it and enjoy it..." he looked into her eyes and she gave back a hushed yes.

He didn´t want to compel her into letting him enter her finally. It was her first time and he wanted her to fully feel and enjoy it. He would have been to be especially careful with her for not hurting her. She had to adapt to his size and when he moved a finger into her, entering her, he felt her tightness.

"Relax...easy easy, relax...I don´t hurt you, Emma, honey..." Henry moved, directing the tip of his cock to her entrance, teasing her when he was gliding back and forth between her legs until she moaned deeply and her pupils grew wider. His fingers teased her clit and when she didn´t drew back, spreading her legs to give him better access he carefully put more pressure on his cock, entering her until he felt some resistance. He stopped, giving her time to adapt to it, kissing her, his lips trailing from one of her nipples up to her chin, her cheek and her throat, putting a line of soft kisses on her delicate skin.

"You...feelin...comfortable:::?" Henry tested uncertain waters and when she whispered a gasping yes he put more pressure on her channel, his thumb massaging her clit.

Emma cried out slightly when she felt him move deeper, penetrating the tightness of her hymen.

He could smell it. The little amount of her blood that mixed with the smell of her passion when he slowly entered her inch per inch finally. Emma felt the tip of his cock pounding against her portio and she moaned deeply when he filled her completely. Her face twitched and her gasping grew harder when it hurt a moment. Henry stopped dead in his movement, kissing her and caressing her with his free hand.

He might have gaining momentum, ramming into her with utter disregard while biting down hard. But Henry wanted her and him enjoying it when he would feed on her while riding her to climax. Emma wasn´t used to it and her first time of having sex he wanted to be a pleasure for her, not being a memory of pain and fear.

Henry hesitated until he felt her relax around him a bit. Carefully he drew back and moved forward again, gliding back and forth. Emma moaned and he felt her clamp around him, her walls closing around his cock when he moved in her.

"Feels...feels...good..." she pressed out, convincing him that she seemed to feel comfortable with him. Good! Emma was too delicate to go on with her as he usually did with willing donors who were used to a vampire´s stamina and strength. Carefully he moved back and forth within her, speeding up a bit, keeping himself back enough so he could feel if she still felt comfortable with it.

"You feelin good, Emma...?" he gasped when he felt his own climax growing up again and she moaned and gasped a half suppressed yes. "I wanna you feel me..."

Her scent was almost overwhelming, sweet, human, sweet like Vanilla. Henry bent deeper, his tongue painting a wet trail over her chest, her cleavage and her neck. He kissed her intensely and she gasped, her breath becoming faster and harder when he was gaining momentum inside her. She was perfectly for him, she was ready for him...

Henry felt his fangs itching to fall and his eyes bled black. He didn´t hold back any longer and when she cried out from her climax he bit down in the curve of her shoulder. Carefully he pressed the sharp tips of his fangs into the delicate, warm skin. It took him all experience and control to be so considerable with her in an attempt to cause her no pain. His fangs penetrating her skin and her gasping mixed with a suppressed cry of surprise when she felt a slight pain in her shoulder. Henry´s arm was around her back and shoulder and his lips parted when he pressed his mouth on her shivering shoulder. Holding, supporting her.

Emma´s heart was beating wildly while he was riding her to climax.

Blood.

A red cloud was shading his mind and he groaned under the first sips when the warmth and sweetness of her blood threatened to break his last walls, threatened to set free the animal within him. Her blood was so precious, so sweet, so inexplicable special to him and he groaned deeply when the first wave of her blood was running over his tongue, filled his mouth and his inner self with her life force. Henry felt as if stumbling over the edge and as if he was going to lose consciousness. He licked and sucked and the red warm flood was running down his throat, setting his whole body, his veins on fire.

Blood

Hot and sweet. She tasted like Vanilla and he couldn´t let go.

Henry sucked and swallowed, being on the edge to let him fall into his hunger, his longing for her sweet blood. He might have gone on forever, sucking, drinking, losing himself in taking what was to be his.

With his lips on her shoulder he moaned and the moans became groans when he felt his own climax coming. He was hard enough to break rocks when he finally exploded into her for the second time tonight. His cum mixing with the hot liquids in her channel. Emma seemed to be able to take a lot for the fact that it was her first time. Only due to his controls learned long ago he was able to ram into her without hurting her while he was drifting in complete satisfaction. Feeding and climaxing.

Time seemed to stretch into eternity.

Don´t let go...don´t let go! His heart and his head were pounding and he was swimming in a red cloud when the blood was running through his veins, hot, vividly, alive.

Since a long time he hadn´t felt so lively, so sanguine...

Emma moaned and the moans became groans when Henry was ramming into her and she felt as if drifting over the bed, her body reacting to the rhythm of Henry´s cock which seemed to have its own life. Never before she had imagined that a man could have such stamina, such strength and tenderness at the same time. With her healthy arm she grabbed for support, her head swimming, her fingernails clinging to his back with such force that she broke his skin. Henry didn´t even seem to feel it, her heart beating fast like never before when she gave herself over to him. The world around her was faltering, almost falling and then the world seemed to tumble over when Henry finally was sending her over the edge. His mouth clinging to her shoulder and he nibbled and sucked and it felt so warm when his tongue and teeth worked her delicate flesh. It was a feeling between lust and pain, so sweet, so delicious it almost let her slip into unconsciousness.

The blood was dripping warm and thick over her shoulder when Henry lifted his mouth for a moment to gasp for breath himself. The hunger was raging within him and only long learned control enabled him to keep back enough not to exhaust Emma, sucking, not drinking without consideration and causing her pain and serious damage. Henry was drifting on the edge and he gasped when he managed it to get his lips away from the little wounds in her shoulder. Emma was trembling under the aftershocks of her orgasm and he didn´t pull away from her when she gasped; "Do...don´t...get...out...can´t..." Emma was afraid to lose consciousness, to fall apart when Henry would pull out of her right now. His cock remaining within her even when he had stopped to bounce into her. His crotch sank down on her, his weight pressing her into the sheets.

"Stay...stay with...me...Henry..." she begged, her voice weak and trembling on the edge to exhaustion. Sated and completed in a way she never imagined before.

Henry licked over the bite marks, tenderly, comforting and his saliva with the coagulants would let heal the bite marks within some hours. His tongue removed the last traces of her delicious blood from her skin and he lifted his head a bit, looking for the area he had bitten in. He had been so longing for her blood and it had threatened to break his controls and for a moment he was afraid that he might have hurt her, might have ravaged her delicate flesh. He could have caused her bruises but he breathed with relief when the impressions of his teeth were discrete and her skin was only flushed by her desire and her sexual satisfaction. No bruises to grow under. Her fingertip touched his lips when he licked the last remains of blood off them. Henry took her fingertip between his lips and tenderly nibbled on it with blunt teeth. He softly took her fingertip out of his mouth and directed it to her mouth. Emma opened her lips and sucked at her finger, tasting the salty saliva on it with a hint of a taste of blood on it. Her own blood.

She won´t be able to differ that it was her own blood, not his, Henry thought with a silent smile. He bent down, kissing her and for sure she now would taste the blood in it. Emma was caught in the thralls of her passion and he saw the questioning look running over her face when her tongue tasted the trace of blood. She won´t by far be able to enjoy the whole delicacy of blood. To her it might only have a slight taste of iron. Coppery was a wrong, typically human expression because Copper was only a trace element in it. Not before she would be turned into a vampire she would be able to taste all the fine differences and the life essence in it.

But he won´t turn her.

Vampires couldn´t really feed on each other.

Henry didn´t want to think of her as a simple source by now. Not now when he had enjoyed her to the full extend. Emma was more to him. She was precious and lovable and delicate to him. Not only her blood, what was essential, but her whole body and she herself meant so much to him now. Emma was shy and sweet and she deserved to be loved and he was so longing for someone he could be with and be with her what he was. He so had waited for someone with whom he could let go, with whom he could be who he really was...a man and a vampire.

Way too long he had been alone, separated from Aidan, his father, his maker, separated from the others of his kind for almost eighty years since he had been banished from all. He had been hiding in the shades, feeding on occasional sources. It had been surviving, not living. He could keep himself alive but nothing more. Until he came into contact with Bishop´s orphans who were without any leadership. Hunting, feeding, hiding and running from the ground when a feeding went fatally wrong, with no one to clean up behind them. Unintentionally he had become their leader, teaching them how to hide and to feed without leaving behind a trail of corpses. Over the time he had found a possibility to build up blood dens where they could feed from willing donors as it had been in the old days at the Halloway Hotel. But that was gone as were the orphans when Boston came under the sway of Suren and finally the flu started to devastate the vampires all over...

Feeding not only became risky for health as it might become for humans who fed on blood. It became risky for life, for immortal life! Would it only have been to become sick anyway by the flu it would have been unpleasant. But the flu killed them. Every single drop of blood might became a death sentence.

Emma moved a bit under him and she sighed, stared into his face, her tongue licking over her lips.

"What...what is it...?" she whispered and her healthy hand came up to his chest, feeling for his skin. Her fingers felt the fine hair that covered his chest, running down in a thin line to his lower abdomen. She stroked dreamfully over it, playing with the tiny hair that came in curls of light brown.

"Ssshhh...it´s okay, sweetie...hmm...it´s all okay..." Henry whispered, "you´re safe in here...no harm...no hurt...it´s all okay, Emma, honey..." His voice was all comforting, soothingly when he finally carefully pulled out of her, his cock glistening wet with the mess he had caused in her. She looked at him, her eyes wide with astonishment. Below it he could see that she was growing tired. He rolled off her to her side, lying on his left side. His arm shoved under her back and he pulled her into an embrace, holding her tight. Her head was lying in the curve of his shoulder and he felt her warm breath on the skin of his chest. Slowly she was coming down from her height, relaxing in his arm and her breath calmed down to a normal level. Henry´s hand moved to her temple, stroking it and he put light kisses on her face and her shoulder. Emma sighed and closed her eyes. Relaxing in his arms and he felt her cuddling into his embrace. For a moment there was nothing but the sound of Emma´s and his breath. Her eyes were halfway closed and then she moved her hand to her shoulder curve, feeling for the distinct bite marks.

"What...what is it?" she moved her hand in front of her eyes, stared at the small dot of blood on her fingertip. "What...why do I...I mean...why do I...? Bleed?" her voice became surprised and her eyes were widening.

"Shhh, Emma...it´s all okay...that will heal soon. In a couple of hours it´ll be gone completely. Don´t worry, Emma..." Henry´s voice became compelling, his eyes bled black and his fangs itched to fall when the vampire within him threatened to break to the surface. He simply let go, hiding nothing from her anymore.

Emma stared in his face, the dark eyes which had become black pools and the tips of his fangs peering from under his upper lip. Henry saw a hint of fear and uncertainty in her face. His hands stroked over her temples, comforting, soft and tenderly.

"Who...? What...WHAT are you?" Her voice became high pitched, fearful.

She had seen him kill a...dog? Wolf? And three men in the street who had attempted to...to rape her! No man could kill so fast and easily. He was...he was... She didn´t know what he was, what she should believe he would be. Her heart was beating wildly now when she stared into his face. The face that looked so... Not human. Not entirely.

"What do you think...I am?" Henry replied softly, slightly smiling. His hands were at her face, soft, carefully because he wanted to soothe her and not driving her into panic.

But Emma will have to know! She will have to know and she will have to accept, he thought. He wasn´t about to let her go now! Emma was his key to survival! Her blood was too precious to let her go.

Emma looked into his face, tried to shove out of his arms in a movement of fear, but Henry grabbed her by the shoulders, holding her not tightly but near to him. His voice got the timbre he used on people when it came to let him feed on them. Vampire compelling skills.

"What do you think what I am, Emma?" he repeated when she didn´t answer his first question. His voice was calm. He felt Emma tremble in his hands.

Then it made click, click in her head,

Her voice was trembling when she brought out the one word that came to her mind when she looked into his face with the dark eyes.

"Vampire!"

Emma winced and stiffened when Henry tenderly stroked her face.

"Do you believe in vampires?" he asked her but this once his voice was serious, totally earnest. The slight smile was gone.

"Don´t...Don´t know!" she pressed out with a trembling voice. Emma rather wanted to believe that this might be a dream, a strange dream...but a dream. She had seen such things in the movies, read it in books but reality...? How could anything like this being real? A dream! That was it and she wanted so dearly to wake up from it, simply waking up from the dream in her bed at home and everything would be okay again but for the memory of a strange dream. Dreams are always images, nothing more, her mother had always told her when she had woken up from a nightmare in her childhood.

"I am a vampire, Emma! And I won´t hurt you! I won´t do you any harm, Emma...never...You´ll be safe with me, Emma, honey...!"

"Vampires...are...killer! They´re living on blood!" she pressed out.

"I don´t kill when I feed on blood, Emma! I have my urges under control! No killing...for blood!" Henry insisted.

"But you...you killed those men!" Emma stared at him, helplessly moving in his arms.

"These men had been killers, Emma! Trust me...I had been out in the streets for long enough! I knew these men you had no clue of! They were rapers, killed women over a long time. Guess you never heard about the kills as your parents kept you away from anything to protect her precious daughter from anything bad or evil! You may have grown up well protected and I can´t blame your parents for it. Good parents always want to protect their children! They want them to stay well and healthy and safe. But the world out there is much more dangerous than your parents would like it for you. You´ll be safe with me, Emma! I won´t anybody let harm you, Emma! Trust me!" Henry talked to her with a convincing voice in an attempt to get her under some kind of control. He had to convince her that she would be safe in here and that he would protect her in order to keep her away from any thoughts of escape! He won´t let her run from him.

Emma looked at him. She wasn´t certain about anything but for the fact that he had saved her life from these bastards. His hand caressed her temple, the side where the guy had beaten her, his fingers soft and comforting and when Henry bent deeper and placed a soft kiss on the sore point, Emma sighed and shuddered and sank deeper into his embrace. Henry pulled the blankets over them and she moved slightly, until she was cuddled against his chest and shoulder. He kissed her again and Emma closed her eyes.

"Ssshhh...sleep, honey and I´ll stay with you...when you wake up all will be better..." he caressed her tenderly and placed a warm kiss on her cheek. Emma sighed and let herself fall into the feeling of safety in his arms. It didn´t take long and she had fallen asleep. Henry gave in to his own urge for sleep now that the raging fire of hunger had disappeared, indulging in the warmth and softness of her human body and being close to her.

This night had turned out to keep some happiness at hand even for him...

_The End_


End file.
